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Scientific American on 3-D Chips
m5shiv writes: "Scientific American is running a feature on 3-D Memory Chips. These devices look like they will significantly reduce the cost of PDA's and other handheld devices as well as replacing analog film.
By stacking devices vertically, density goes up considerably. The company,
Matrix Semiconductor, appears to have some very interesting investors such as Kodak, Sony
and Microsoft."
The article talked about how heat dissipation will be impaired by the 3-D structure (obviously, when you increase volume relative to surface area.) Maybe in years to come we'll see some sort of chip/heatsink integration to channel heat directly from the interior of the 3d structure to the outside by the heatsink rather than the normal dissipation through the chip.
If you read the bottom of the article, you notice the author holds 14 patents for this new technology.
Some of the founders had much to do with the founding of a company named Rambus, Inc. as well. Here's hoping they've learned from the mistakes of their former company.
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
Not a flame. Just an observation. Is it me or does it seem like Microsoft has got an "investment finger" in the pies of a huge number of new technologies coming out?Is this a diversification strategy or a way to say, "Hey, we own part of this company and we'd like you to make so changes suitable to our software?".
Just curious.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Did Thomas H. Lee, the author of this article, die in February?
How to Download YouTube Videos
First 3D-Glasses
Next 3D games.
Then Doritos 3D
Now 3D-Memory Chips
What's the next?
Good job they finally invented these. I kept losing my 1 and 2-dimensional memory chips down the back of the couch.
www.onlinescam.com - May contain nuts
...I thought it was some kind of gimmick on SciAm's part that allowed us to read their magazines in 3D if we had a decent 3D card... heh... kinda like their April Fool's articles.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
Matrix 3-D Memory is a field-programmable, archival medium. Cards with 3DM are write-once and the programming can happen all at once or in parts over time. Once on the card, the data is secure for generations and can be read repeatedly.
So it's merely a writable-CD-on-a-chip. Maybe they will develop a rewritable version someday :-)
Omnis basim vester nobis compete sunt.
And why is this so revolutionary? I came up with silicon stacking at Sperry-Univac in early 1980, complete with heat pipes to channel away excess heat. I offered it to Sperry, but they weren't interested. Too bad - my design was for CPU as well as memory chips.
-- Ed Carp, N7EKG erc@pobox.com PGP KeyID: 0x0BD32C9B What I'm up to: http://intuitives.mine.nu
Having been postponed or negated several times now, should we call Moore's law a postulation at best?
The author states that the first generation of their chip will be a 512 million bit device. i.e. 64Mb. That doesn't seem like a lot to me...
...so that they'll actually still be useful eighteen months after I buy them.
At first reading this technology seems like it has a future, in that, sure it's early in its infancy, but somebody will come along and make it work.
But what we're really talking about is not 3-D, it's just stacked 2-D. In fact technically, all computer chips are 1-D.
Because of the limitation of the fact that the Silicon crystal needs to be monolithic, that is, a lattice of atoms completely ordered throughout the chip we've got to think outside the box, this guy's inside the box, but realistically, this is to save money, and he wants to see something before his great grand kids are born.
The heart of the problem is the crystal flat surface. What we need is a crystal that grows out and up in such as manner as to be a monolithic latice but also compartmentalized. A cube, with little windows and rooms and holes so that the dope can get in.
Completely revolutionized fabrication thinking. We'll see it in less than 50 years.
I *knew* there was a problem with my Abit mainboard...
"The second advance was a way to flatten each coat of new material so that the chips don't rise unevenly like towers built by drunken bricklayers."
It doesn't seem to be discussed in this article, but there is much progress being made on "3D copiers," computerized machines that will build complicated 3-dimensional objects one layer at a time out of ice or plastics. Because of how these objects are constructed, shapes that would be impossible to carve from a solid mass can be "molded" from the bottom up or from the inside-out.
If 3D chip design proliferates, I predict that these two technologies will eventually merge. Sophisticated chips will be assembled one layer at a time, perhaps one layer of atoms at a time, with electronic pathways twisting and turning through a three-dimensional block of material designed to ferry heat away from the core of the device. The main advantage, of course, would be enabling shorter pathways from one part of the chip to another, improving further as design improves. Perhaps in time motherboards would be replaced by "motherblocks" and the entire computer will become far more portable.
about the article in my opinion was the part saying that we are nearing the limit of miniaturisation of electronic components.
I mean, think about it.
If we're going to reach the limit of how small we can make these transistors by say 2020 (by which time we'll most likely be up to around 30Ghz processors), that's a major limitation in this industry.
The way I see it, it could go one of two ways:
1. We reach an inescapable limit of electronics, and the entire computer semiconductor industry implodes because it can't keep up with it's own reputation for performance increases.
2. Before that deadline occurs, some new fantastic and mindblowing technology is created. By this I don't mean some 'chip-stacking-bastardisation' of electronics but some true breakthrough.
Whichever way it goes, it's going to be very exciting, and I'm glad I'll be around to see it. Considering how much our lives are impacted by electronics these days, it could be the modern-day equivalent of the industrial revolution.
The first products incorporating such 3-D microchips--memory cards cheap enough to use as digital film and audio-recording media--are scheduled to appear later this year.
... They've got to hurry. There's only 20 days left...
1. Designing 3d chips must be hell. No wonder they stick to memorychips where you mostly just have to copy/paste chip structure.
Seeing xxx layered cpu's seems unlikly untill designtools can handle 3d strucures efficiently. This will certainly take a long time.
2. Moores law is dependet on shrinking the transistors so more can be fittet on the same amount of space, 2d -> n^2
If the transitors are shrinked in height as well, the possible amount of transitors in a cube would be increased by n^3.
(This won't work in practise yet, they've got it working with 12 layers, but would be cool)
Fo one thing, if we go to a silicon cube, we will wind up having to heat sink 5 sides, not just the top.
There will like be a practical limit to cooling which means that we will not achieve a real cube in terms of proportions. For a long while with thinning layers will compensate for the increasing thinckness, so that even with hundreds of layers, it will likely be only as thick as many of the other earlier designs, say the 386 or 486. But the heat density is still going to be amazing.
The science fiction prediction imagines a story where computations are basically done by a pool of molten metal kept under high pressure to keep everything aligned.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
One of the largest issues with combating Moore's law currently is heat dissipation. They mention that it will be a problem, but it may be more difficult than is feasible to fix. Admittedly liquid nitrogen cooling can fix lots of heat dissipation problems, but not many people will be savvy enough to use it.
This is an interesting idea, and I think that it will probably have applications in packages where not processing power but sizes are the issues. Perhaps in several years we will have cell phones with 3D chips in them, but I don't think that it will have a large impact on CPU markets until the heat issues are resolved.
This initial size doesn't bother me. As it's perfected and costs go down that would grow fast enough. Being WORM media is another issue though. I understand that this is a stepping stone to dynamic media, but at the moment I can get CD-Rs for around $.50/unit that are a proven media, hold much more data, and are already widely supported. And guess what: there are CD-RW already too (he can't do that yet). The heat thing could also be/not be an issue. Perhaps since it's stacked vert it will cool better. It's certainly harder to cover all surfaces in 3D. I have this vision of a cube with a heatsink on it's five exposed sides, only to have a core meltdown.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
Good question. But, this won't replace analog film until CCD's become a heck of a lot better. I figure you need about 30 megapixels to be able to do a 16x20 enlargement, which would put the digital camera in a league with 35mm film. Now imagine the resolution you need to compete with medium-format.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Just for the non-article-reading record, the application towards "digital film" is only that they expect to make really really dense memory devices, so what this technology may replace is CF, not chemical/"analog" film, or even its digital equivalent, like CCD's.
-- Watch the REAL Jon Katz.
b = bit
B = byte
512 million bit does NOT equal 64 million bit.
64 MB.
Just be glad you didn't write mb, cause then I'd have to flog you as well!
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Isn't Doug Lenat's Eurisko program the one who figured out the 3d lithography process many, many years ago? I guess he didn't license out the patent very nicely, because we're only NOW hearing about high-density three dimensional RAM chips.
Oh well, a number of science fictiony people have been talking about this technology for quite some time, and dreaming up amusing applications for it in fields like processing, mass storage, I/O, etc. The idea of a cherry-sized chip with the computing capacity of a human brain is pretty common in those old books.
Of course, three or four layers of memory is a big step from thirty or forty thousand layers of processor.
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
"One important factor has remained roughly constant: the cost of semiconductor real estate, at about $1 billion per acre of processed silicon."
That's the first time I've seen real estate more expensive than in Japan.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
The guy does not understand Moore's law.
Moore's law is shaped by economic forces. Silicon chips don't "wear out" like metals and plastics. If the industry fails to obsolete the previous generation, what do they have to sell?
At any stage along the way, there are dozens of potential avenues for reaching the next cost/performance milestone. They simply "do what it takes" to get there.
3D could have been pursued long ago, but there was no real need. The advantage of making transistors smaller is that the speed increases while the voltage and heat decreases. If you can make a transistor smaller, you aren't going to pursue any other course.
Moore's law has not "drooped". There has always been something right around the corner to rescue Moore's law, and this article just adds to the evidence that nothing much has changed.
The significant event at the present time is that leakage current has become sizeable relative to peak operating current. Shrinking transistors is no longer a free lunch.
I think 3D will succeed in applications where wire latency is a bigger problem than heat dissipation. The biggest advantage of 3D is that it lets you cram more stuff closer together.
According to the article the plan on making storage that can hold 300 or so 1Mpixel digital images. I have a ComapctFlash card that holds about 200 3Mpixel images, it cost me $110 (on sale ). I figure they hold about the same amount of data as the 3D chips are intended to. So this new technology can make a $110 CF card even cheaper, but not by more then $110. Realistically, probably not more then $100 or $80 cheaper...
And it won't make cameras cheaper at all since camera makers seldom include CF cards of a useful size at all (my latest camera came with a 8M card, enough to hold fewer then 8 normal pictures, maybe 3 raw format ones -- less then a second of shooting at full speed!).
It might even make the cameras slightly more costly as venders finally decide to ship "useful" sized CF cards (which is not as good as one may think -- would you want to pay $30 extra to get a 340M CF card when your real plan is to pay $60 for a 1G CF card?)
This technology looks interesting but there is definitely a good share of hype in both the SciAm article and the company's web site.
In particular, there is a suggestion that there are cost savings in part because the surface area of a "3d chip" is less than "1d chips" since 1d chips have more surface area there is a greater chance a defect will happen within that area. (Thus "small yield.") This is a spurious suggestion for the following reasons:
1. Each layer of the "3d" chip is subject to abnormality risk. (Thus real risk is LAYERS x AREA x RISK. For 1d chip AREA is bigger, but LAYERS = 1.)
2. The chip is mechanically "ground flat" after each layer to prepare for the next. I'm sure this works and I am also sure there a failure rate greater than zero for this operation.
3. Perfect alignment of the layers is required otherwise one of more parts of the "cube" will fail. They are working on fault tollerance issues right now, and they should.
Bottom line is that every bad chip drives up the final production cost. This is true for 1d and 3d. Seems like all the risks of 1d apply to 3d and now there are a few more. How will this be cheaper in the short run?
Let's not get into the heat issue that has not been resolved.
I hope they succeed, but the oversimplifications made trying to sell this thing bug me.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
I wonder if there is much research into multi-layer *superconducting* materials. Such an approach would seem to mitigate any problems with outrageous heat dissipation, as well as provide for more electron mobility (i.e., as a direct result of negligible resistance). Thin-film superconductors have been de rigeur for 15 years, so it probably wouldn't be that much of a conceptual leap, but merely an extrapolation of current lines of research.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
The story seems to imply that it's something about storage that is the limiting factor in today's digital cameras. But that's far from true, IMO. The first two problems with digital cameras are resolution (6+ megapixel professional cameras notwithstanding) and battery life (again, the pros aren't sticking 4AAs in their cameras) .. With solid state storage for 1000 pictures under $200 and 2oz, and portable hard-drive storage for 10000+ pictures under $300 and 12oz, it's a distant third as far as I'm concerned.
Another post suggests that the write-once capability of the 3D memory chip will be some kind of magic to prove that a photo hasn't been retouched. But why couldn't I get a writer for these memories in my PC, and store an image to it after I run gimp/photoshop? This problem can be solved by having the camera digitally sign its images---after you load it in your photo editor, you can't write out another file with a valid signature. (But is Kodak or anybody else prepared to create a tamper-proof digital camera and adequately protect the digital signing key that would be built into such a camera?)
Now that there are high-quality digital photographic printing processes, 300-600dpi onto photo paper, is somebody working on 3000-6000dpi printing onto photographic negatives? The same technology that makes our digital prints look good should also let us make awesome fake negatives! So much for the faith of people in the photographic negative...
Hate stupid software on freshmeat? Laugh at
How would you like to have a deathmatch in a beautifully rendered cathedral with huge numbers of polygons and some realtime raytracing? How about etherial enemies that look like something out of a movie special effects department? How about a mission to the power center of a Darco from SimCity, one that looked real?
Think about the future, and don't think small!
I have a feeling that if they want to make a better BIOS, this may be helpful pretty soon.
There is now research being published which manages to produce grains potentially much greater than transistors at precise locations, although this was being done with excimer lasers for quite some time they are now even managing it with deposited seed chemicals ... so it can be done with just another process step.
... personally Id much rather see the thin-film memory from companies like thinfilm.se and Ovonyx commercialized. Memory through the use of anti-fuses in a 3D semiconductor is nice, at least thats what I assume they are doing, but write once memory just doesnt do it for me.
If you are able to form grains larger than the transistor and at precise locations boundaries are not a problem even in thin film deposited silicon. Apart from that for the memory cell's the grain boundaries never were much of a problem anyway, as long as you can keep all the high speed logic at the bottom there isnt any problem anyway.
I think Matrix is only interesting because they are promising product soon
Modest, he's not.
The problem, as someone else pointed out, is yield. This involves running the chip through all the steps of lithography, deposition, and etching many times, usually losing a few devices to process flaws on each pass.
That's why this guy talks about needing redundancy and error recovery. That's nothing new; as far back as the 1970s, chips have been designed with redundant parts that were bypassed during tests, like bad spots on disk. This works well for memory, badly for more complex logic. Historically, the semiconductor industry has considered redundancy, but the wafer fab people always got the yields up to where it wasn't necessary.
It's clear that this will make memories smaller, but not necessarily cheaper. The number of fab steps per bit fabricated is equal or higher, not lower. Yes, there's a savings on the raw silicon, but that's not a big fraction of chip cost.
There's also the fact that RAM doesn't take up a significant volume in most current products. Maybe 1% of a PC's case volume is RAM chips. This guy is thinking not of PCs, but portable applications, which is probably right. There's also more price headroom on things like "memory sticks" and "flash cards" than on commodity RAM for computers.
Notice that he's also thinking of slow, low-duty-cycle applications, like storing music and video. That cuts the heat dissipation. Cooling the gates in the middle layers will be tough.
Stacked memory devices? You mean like the ones Irvine Sensors have been making for 20 years?
To their credit, Matrix Semiconductors acknowledges that they weren't the first ones to do this; but rather that they (supposedly) are the first to have mass production capabilities.
Sound of me slapping my forehead.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
I don't believe that you would need 30 megapixels to equal 35mm film. Films most people use resolve around 100 limes/mm. The zoom lenses
most people use don't even resolve that. Full
frame 35mm is 24mm x 36mm so typical 35mm quality can be reached with 8 megapixels. Only the very
best 35mm single focal length lenses at their best aperature and the slowest high quality films resolve 200 lines/mm. In theory you would need 30 megapixels to equal this but that is well beyond typical 35mm quality.
This has been discussed for years, but not using poly, using selective epitaxial overgrowth and polish back to make SOI islands. It has been demostrated at the university level while I was still there. Groups had begun to investigate the advantages of having the third dimension available for circuits. I believe they quickly realized that the complexity was overwhelming with no CAD tools available to handle the concept.
There is a Swedish company (subsidiary of the Norwegian company Opticom and Intel) developing stackable "3D" memory based on polymer films: http://www.thinfilm.se.
To the best of my knowledge, film is CHEMICAL not ANALOG!
Although successful research has been done to rewritable technologies, they will focus on write-once memories for the time being:
The Matrix model brings a very low cost point into the picture but with a write-once approach. Instead of buying one or two reprogrammable cards for semi-permanent storage, consumers would use many of the write once cards for permanent storage and add cards as needed. The advantage is always having a permanent copy of the file that cannot be erased and is accessible on demand.
Omnis basim vester nobis compete sunt.