Super-fast Transistors On the Way

nbannerman writes "The BBC is reporting about a new kind of transistor, that recently set a world record of 110Ghz. From the article: 'To achieve the speed gain, researchers at the University of Southampton added fluorine to the silicon devices. The technique uses existing silicon manufacturing technology meaning it should be quick and easy to deploy.' The apparent applications for this process include mobile phones and digital cameras."

Comments

Faster?

[Asm-Coder]

Maybe we should just get faster software.

Re:Faster?

[rsilvergun]

It's cheaper to pay a few top engineers to make faster hardware then to pay a mountain of top computer scientists to write stable, fast code. Corel learned that the hardway.

Re:Faster?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

It's cheaper to pay a few top engineers to make faster hardware then to pay a mountain of top computer scientists to write stable, fast code.

Yeah, because if the cpu is fast enough, even unstable code works better!

Re:Faster?

[Carthag]

It's the old "stable, fast, on schedule; pick two" -- the faster the chip is, the more likely you can concentrate on writing stable code on schedule and make up for the slowness with processor speed.

Re:Faster?

[sjwt]

Due to economic downsizing, you now have a choice of 'pick one, so long as its fast'

Re:Faster?

[Fordiman]

Programmer: There is no speed issue that cannot be solved through the use of better hardware.
Engineer: There is no hardware issue that cannot be solved through the use of well-written software.

Discuss.

Meanwhile, they have this notion that an improvement in transistor speed is an advance specifically for mobile peripherals. What about shattering moore's law? Have these guys not considered that, you know, maybe, your computer's circuitry is made up almost entirely out of transistors and capacitors?

Honestly, this means faster anything used for logic. Fuck yo' beowulf clusta; a single computer built of these would operate at ungodly speeds.

You know, if Intel decides to license the tech. Still, it would be a small change in their existing manufacturing process if they include it, little extra cost in chip manufacturing, and they'll probably be able to charge a mint a piece for 11GHz cores.

Re:Faster?

[jthill]

Check this out. TFA's stuff is slow, and pisses away power like it was water. This stuff... they can make a functional transistor by bouncing a single electron off force-field walls. One electron. To test it at full speed, they first need to figure out what to use as a THz scope.

Mobile Phones?

[terminateprocess]

Now remind me why exactly we need 110GhZ moblie phone processors?

Re:Mobile Phones?

[BSonline]

Because faster is better. Don't you remember high school cheerleaders?

Re:Mobile Phones?

[Formica]

They're talking about transistors, not entire processors. High speed transistors are needed for the RF front-end, where analog signals up to 1 GHz or so are encountered. These signals require devices that can switch at speeds significantly faster than the signal frequency. Formica

Re:Mobile Phones?

[Trouvist]

The faster the chip cycles, the higher the communication frequency can be. It is difficult to do noise-reduction calculations on ultra-high frequency communications without chips that cycle at the rate of data transmission.

Re:Mobile Phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

So my shiny new video-enabled phone will respond instantaneously to button-presses.

Like my LCD-based phones from 10 years ago used to.

Re:Mobile Phones?

[Formica]

11 GHz chip != 11 GHz processor. They're mainly talking about analog chips - i.e. op-amps, oscillators, high speed muxes, etc. Chips like these: http://www.maxim-ic.com/solutions/cellular_handset s/index.mvp?pl_pk=14 http://www.analog.com/en/subCat/0,2879,770%255F851 %255F0%255F%255F0%255F,00.html

Re:Mobile Phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that you posted the misinformation, Microsoft will raise their system requirements beyond what processors are capa.....

On second thought, post all kinds of misinformation like this, then Microsoft will spec themselves out of business. ;)

Re:Mobile Phones?

[swg101]

Actually, the article says that they created a BJT transistor
"The research was carried out using a simple type of transistor known as a silicon bipolar transistor."
Processors use FET transistors because BJT transistors need current to bias them all the time. These transistors would consume way too much power to make any sort of processor (especially for mobile devices). As others have commented, this would only be useful for the analog processing of the output transmitter.

Re:Mobile Phones?

[justthisdude]

If you are looking at a little more clarity on why mobile phones, you need to think about radios and signal processing. To digitally sample a signal, you need to sample it at least twice the highest frequency (this is the Nyquist frequency). If you want to create or receive a cell phone signal (around 2 GHz) you need to sample it around 5 GHz, and to digitally process what you receive, you need to be processing at these higher speeds. Without such speeds, receivers and transmitters need to use analog electronics to modulate slower digital signals up to 2GHz, and analog electronics are not flexible. I said 2 GHZ, but some cells are 1.8GHZ, some 1.9GHz, and so on. If you do it all digitally, then changing cellular systems and frequencies becomes a software issue rather than a hardware issue. Now you can use a single phone for CDMA and GSM networks. Carriers can upgrade or switchover their networks without having to get people to trade in their phones. The people really salivating over this are probably the DOD's JTRS software radio people who are trying to make a single radio to handle all military waveforms under 2 GHz (assuming the war didn't swallow their funding).

Re:Mobile Phones?

[modecx]

I'm sorry? Using "ultra-high frequency communications" would serve no purpose as an application to cell communication, unless you cherish the idea of cell companies needing to put a tower every few hundred yards, having your phone put out enough radiation to cook your brains, having your signal blocked by a little bit of rain, and not being able to use your phone whilst inside buildings with walls thicker than cellophane.

Cellphones use the frequencies they use not because it's the best that technology can do, they use those frequencies because it's the most practical way to do it.

Re:Mobile Phones?

[ozmanjusri]

it's GHz not GhZ, you babboon.

It's baboon not babboon, you buffoon.

As an added benefit...

[nebaz]

added fluorine to the silicon devices

Not only will the transistors be faster, but whiter and shinier, they won't need to floss.

Re:As an added benefit...

[GeckoX]

Um, sure, but you've got the wrong substance in mind.

Fluorine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorine

Fluoride: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoride

There would be some pretty serious differences betweent the two. Neither is good for you to ingest, but one is just REALLY BAD to get anywhere near you at all!

Re:As an added benefit...

[lubricated]

they are both the same element. Just a slightly differenet amount of electrons. You really are nitpicking over a joke. Fluoride is still Flourine.

Mobile Phones?-PADs

[Anonymous Coward]

"Now remind me why exactly we need 110GhZ moblie phone processors?"

So the future will get here faster.

Re:Mobile Phones?-PADs

[telchine]

I keep waiting for the future to come, but all I ever see is the present.

But use of such mobile phones and cameras...

[Anonymous Coward]

...might taint your precious bodily fluids.

Real-world benefits?

[FlyByPC]

...so this means that Flight Simulator X will run at 10fps instead of 5?

Re:These are bipolar devices

[NotQuiteReal]

Couldn't they add some Lithium too?

Power Consumption

[grahamsz]

Remember that when a CMOS gate is switching the current flowing through it increases. The faster the gate is able to switch, the less power will be used in the state change. Now the processor doesn't have to run at anywhere near that speed, but the fast transistor switch will minimize the power per cycle.

Re:Power Consumption

[dunkers]

The gate will only switch faster for the same, or less, current if the gate capacitance is decreased - i.e. you make the device physically smaller. If the capacitance stays the same then you must bung in current faster to achieve faster switching. Faster switching may reduce the power cycle (time), but on its own it doesn't reduce the power requirements.

Re:Power Consumption

[dpilot]

You're both right.

You are talking about basic c*v**2 current, and he's talking about shoot-through current during the transition. Though one normally doesn't fuss too hard about shoot-through unless slew rates are really slow. But then again, it wasn't that many years ago that device standby leakage was nearly negligible, instead of being a substantial fraction of the active current, like it is today. For that matter, the scope traces I've seen of high-speed clocks look a heck of a lot more like a sine wave than a logic pulse, but at this point we're stressing capabilities of the measurment electonics, too.

Re:Power Consumption

[wontonenigma]

From the article:

The research was carried out using a simple type of transistor known as a silicon bipolar transistor.

RTFA

This isn't about CMOS, for a change. This is about analog power amplification and the 100GHz figure quoted is either the maximum frequency of current or power amplification. Too bad the BBC doesn't say.

Most cell phones contain one Gallium Arsenide bipolar transistor to amplify the signal going to the antenna. This faster Silicon transistor would open up other transmission frequencies but it wouldn't make that game of Alchemy play any faster.

Re:Power Consumption

[1zenerdiode]

Yeah, except TFA says the gains were achieved with modified BJT technology, which is not CMOS. In addition, the faster that you switch COMPLIMENTARY (that's the C) MOS structures, the larger the shoot-through current (this is the current that flows between the power supply rails as each transistor in the complimentary structure is temporarily partially conducting). In microprocessors and memory cells, these are responsible for huge transient current requirements, and get worse as the clock frequency is increased.

The reason that the development is significant is not from a microprocessor standpoint - it means that the front end amplifiers and mixers that have to run at the highest frequencies can be fabricated using more cost-effective manufacturing techniques. This is assuming that the article is correct in stating the development concerns BJT's. Hell knows why they showed a photo of a non-populated circuit board, but hey, it's the media. Guess you have dial your expectations lower.

Call General Jack D. Ripper on this one...

[Cade144]

This sounds like a plot to sap our vitality by adding Flourine to impurify our sacred bodily fluids ^H^H^H^H^H transistors.
Oh, for those who have never seen it, the silly reference is from Dr. Strangeglove.

Mod the parent upwards!

[Anonymous Coward]

So the future will get here faster.

Precisely! We agree completely.

Signed,
SACFTF
Slashdot Anonymous Cowards For The Future

-----EQUAL REPRESENTATION-----

Listen you "big A-C" Anonymous Cowards, we're against the future. Technology ruined our lives, remember when trolls used to live under bridges? Now we live in basements or apartments. We should go backwards, not forwards!

Signed,
SACATF
Slashdot Anonymous Cowards Against The Future.

Re:bipolar transistors

[Andy Dodd]

No, because whenever Slashdot covers these ultra-high-frequency transistors, they never bother mentioning that there's a huge difference between transistors optimized for logic (always on/off, usually very high drive levels and low gain, fast switching of square waves) and transistors designed for RF signal amplification (Usually designed for linear amplification of sinusoidal or modulated sinusoidal signals, lower drive levels with higher gain, and no one cares about the switching time, just the highest frequency sinusoid at which the device exhibits gain.) In essentially every case, the article is covering amplification of a signal at the record-setting frequency, not operation of a logic gate at that frequency.

There is also a very good chance that while the manufacturing process may be suitable for single (relatively) large tranistors (perfectly suitable, and often desireable for RF), it is not suitable for integrated circuits with multiple tranistors and other components on a die. Gallium Arsenide is a perfect example of this - The IC industry gave up on it pretty quickly because it was simply too difficult to make integrated circuits with it and the performance benefits for logic circuits weren't worth the costs, but manufacturers of RF transistors are still putting large amounts of effort into GaAs and plenty of commercial products exist. (Yes, there are still issues with GaAs technology and a lot of companies still don't trust GaAs in their products except in low-volume high-performance applications, but it's not like logic circuits where nothing exists on the market.)

Same thing with IBM's big SiGe push - great for RF but doesn't seem to have made any inroads to logic, probably due to cost issues and technical problems that make SiGe potentially unsuitable for logic but don't really affect their RF performance.

Re:bipolar transistors

[Andy Dodd]

And before anyone brings up that TFA does mention "clocking", the impression I get is that the writer of the article isn't very technically literate and doesn't really understand the difference between RF circuitry and clocked logic circuitry. See the comment about mobile phones operating in the 1 GHz range - even the fastest smartphones have a CPU clock speed of only 400-500 MHz at most, but mobile phones have been operating with RF carriers close to 1 GHz (specifically 800 and 900 MHz) for 15-20 years, and the 1.8 and 1.9 GHz bands have been in use for close to a decade too. Satellite communications systems frequently operate in the 10-20 GHz region. I don't see any case where the researchers are directly quoted talking about using their new developments for logic circuitry, but a few where they are implying using the new stuff for RF.

Floride in children's ice cream?

[cpopin]

Ripper: A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard core commie works. Mandrake: Jack... Jack, listen, tell me, ah... when did you first become, well, develop this theory. Ripper: Well, I ah, I-I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love. From Dr. Strangelove

MOSFET Application

[dduardo]

I believe this technique would speed up MOSFETs as well because they are saying that the added fluorine doesn't allow the boron to diffuse into the silcon as much. This means you'll have a cleaner line between the p-type and n-type dopped regions. In terms of MOSFETs you could inject the flourine under the gate so when you dope the silicon to create the source and drain you won't have overlap you normaly get under the gate. This means you could reduce the gate to drain and gate to source capacitances which kills the high frequencies.

Re:MOSFET Application

[dcapel]

Truely now, how many people modded this insightful because they didn't understand it?

Re:MOSFET Application

[strider44]

Two. The other two people who modded it modded it informative because they didn't understand it.

Re:MOSFET Application

[Aceticon]

A MOSFET is a type of transistor which is very common in integrated circuits because it's very easy to make using the most common IC fabrication techniques (which basically boil down to making holes in a silicon base, filling those holes with stuff and depositing lines of other stuff on top of it).

One of the physical features of a MOSFET is that there are places where silicon dopped to be of the type P (ie, a substance was added to it so that it is missing electrons in it's crystaline structure by comparisson with pure silicon) is in direct contact with silicon dopped to be of type N (ie, a substance was added to it so that it has extra electrons in it's crystaline structure by comparisson with pure silicon).

Now, as many of us know, solids are just very slow liquids ... stuff embedded in a solid tends to move around, though slowly. The higher the temperature, the faster the moving.

In the specific case of a MOSFET, we have junctions between the silicon dopped with a specific material to make it type-N (ie more electrons) and silicon dopped with a different material to make it type-P (ie fewer electrons). In this situation, some of the dopping atoms in the type-N silicon will move to the type-P side and vice versa, thus making the junction less "sharp" (in terms of the difference between both sides).

Some very complicated formulas (which i forgot all about) can be used to show that the "sharper" the junction, the more efficient it is.

This is what the GGP is going about.

Consider that maybe there are enough people in /. with an EE degree or a deep interest in electronics to actually understand the issue at hand, and maybe, just maybe, they're extra attracted to articles about new kinds of transistors !!???

Re:MOSFET Application

[davros-too]

Definitely not modded insightful by someone who understands. There's no engineer designing MOSFETs who is going to slap his or her forehead and say 'why didn't I think of that?'. CMOS design/fabrication is incredibly complex and doping profiles are optimised using multiple techniques. Silicon bipolar transistors are large and unsophisticated in comparison to the CMOS devices in your computer. I'm not saying these researchers aren't doing good work - but their techniques are not directly applicable to chip manufacture.

Not really the fastest transistor...

[Manchot]

Sure, it might be the fastest silicon BJT, but as TFA alludes to, there are InGaAs HBTs that are functionally equivalent to BJTs and have cutoff frequencies of 710 GHz. Specifically, I'm talking about the one discussed in this paper by Milton Feng's group at the University of Illinois.

Re:Not really the fastest transistor...

[swg101]

From your link:
The performance of a 0.25×3 m2 pseudomorphic heteojunction bipolar transistors achieves peak fT of 710 GHz (fMAX=340 GHz)... (emphasis mine)

So, maximum achievable frequency is actually quite a bit lower than 710GHz.

Also, the article acknowledges that faster transistors exist ("Alternative approaches for building fast transistors exist but they use other materials, such as gallium arsenide or a silicon germanium mix, which require more expensive manufacturing techniques."), but this is a method that can be adapted to existing silicon manufacturing processes.

The article also qualified the claim ("...set a new world record for the fastest transistor of its type."), but of course this is not as sensational of a headline, so did not make it into the summary.

Purpose?

[treak007]

Why would the prime purpose of this be cameras and cell phones, rather then computers.

OMG that would be hard to use.

[Anonymous Coward]

At 100 GHz the wavelength is 3 cm. A quarter wave line would be 0.75 cm. This thing is operating at a frequency well above that at which it is easy/feasible to use a printed circuit board. To operate at this frequency I would have to spend a whole pile of money so I could use hybrid IC techniques. Or I could figure out how to couple this device to waveguide. AARGH!

The magic word Slashdot asks me to type to prove that I'm not a robot is 'hospital'. How very appropriate 'cause that's where I would end up if I tried to use this sucker.

But these are BIPOLAR transistors!

[PaulBu]

Hey, it is "standard" "silicon" process, but they compete with other GaAs/InP/SiGe bipolar transistors, not yoru garden variety CMOS FETs -- and for other technologies Ft of more than 100GHz is not unheard of. Neat trick, and you will see them in your cellphone front-end, maybe soon, but do not hold your breath for 20GHz processors (and if someone makes 'em, please *do not hold them with your bare hands*! -- they gonna be HOT!) ;-)

Paul B.

That's right

[roman_mir]

because if the CPU is fast enough then the software just won't have any time to fail, because it will be very occupied trying to not fall behind the processor. All of the software failures are due to high stress that software is experiencing and the faster the computers are the less time there is for the software to stress, thus it doesn't think about being bloated with all that dead weight and terrible algorythms that much and doesn't get depressed that easily.

Re:Bi-polar not CMOS

[Ig0r]

"Bipolar trannies" sound very scary.

Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads...

[Anonymous Coward]

This here's my BIPOLAR TRANSISTOR. I design analog circuits with it and it's got an Ft of 110 GHz.

I don't design digital circuits with bipolar devices. I design digital circuits with CMOS devices. Bipolar sucks power but it runs fast. CMOS sips power but it run's slower.

And if I'm going to design anything usefull with it, that thing is going to operate at about 1/10th of the cut-off frequency (Ft).

This ain't about 110 GHz CPUs.

This is about Op Amps and Phase Lock Loops.

I know that Circuits 101 was a long time ago for some of you folks, but really.

Re:Yikes! Flourine is nasty stuff

[budgenator]

Yeah right, boy that sounds like one for mythbusters right after they do the 15Kt bic lighter/welder spark episode. Exposure to large amount of fluorine gas is a bad thing and probably fatal, but that's mostly do the extreme oxidising potential of fluorine and poisoning multiple emzymes rather than decalcification in fact fluorine is added to teeth to recalcify them and to turn some of the calcium hypatite into calcium flourite to increase the teeth's decay resistance, literally turning some of the tooth into the rock fluorite.

What About IBM+Georgia Tech @ 500ghz?

[raftpeople]

Just a few weeks ago there was an article about IBM in conjunction with Georgia Tech, supercooled reaching 500ghz, room temp was at about 300ghz.

Hos is this new one a world record at 110ghz?

Re:Where does that expression come from, anyway?

[Anarchitect_in_oz]

The "triangle of Expectation" has been used in the construction industry for a long time as well.
often the sides are labeled Time, Cost and Quality, but the idea is still the same. I've even seen builders put the diagram in tender submissions.

Some management guru has even gone on to say that for any given project the area of the triangle is always the same. so that the most effective project will be an equal angle triangle.
The management guy was from the 70's so the idea has to be at least a 100years older than that. ;-)

It is strange that is such a common thing yet it doesn't google an orgin.

The *real* article is here. fT = 110GHz

[viking2000]

Who reads BBC news for scientific discovery?

Summary:
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/12112/
pdf:
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/12112/01/2006_Kham_ Record_fT.pdf