IBM Creates World's Fastest Semiconductor Circuits

Todd Heidesch writes: "'IBM announced it has created the world's fastest semiconductor circuit, operating at speeds of over 110 GigaHertz (GHz) and processing an electrical signal in 4.3 trillionths of a second.' IBM expects the new technology to be pumping out 100 gigabit/sec network switching chips by the end of the year (on an optimistic schedule, I presume)." dr_zeus contributes a link to this Reuters article running on Wired (also fairly thin) on the release, writing: "Granted, this isn't a PC chip, but one wonders how long it will be before we hear 'dude, you've got a 110GHz Dell!'"

Comments

What about the quantum barier?

[Edmund Blackadder]

When in engineering school (a couple of years ago) my professor declared that we are moving towards the end of the speed and size improvements of microchips, because soon the assumptions aboout newtonian physics, on which circuit design is based on, will stop being reliable.

Usually you dont have to worry about quantumn effects (electrons tunneling and such things), because there are enough electrons to statisticaly average out the quantumn effects into the classical model.

But when you increase frequency you usually have to decrease the size of the components (so transistors switch faster). But if you decrease size too much you will not have enough electrons passing trough your circuit, to ensure the signal follows classical laws.

Well I guess the quantumn barrier was a lot further than i thought it was.

Or maybe IBM are not decreasing the size of their transistors but increasing voltages to make circuits switch faster.