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IBM Scientists Find New Way To Shrink Transistors
MarcAuslander writes that IBM scientists have discovered a way to replace silicon semiconductors with carbon nanotube transistors, an innovation the company hopes will dramatically improve chip performance and get the industry past the limits of Moore's law. According to the Times: In the semiconductor business, it is called the 'red brick wall' — the limit of the industry's ability to shrink transistors beyond a certain size. On Thursday, however, IBM scientists reported that they now believe they see a path around the wall. Writing in the journal Science, a team at the company's Thomas J. Watson Research Center said it has found a new way to make transistors from parallel rows of carbon nanotubes.
Transistors, and their own US-based workforce.
The Moore law that I know says that the number of transistor in a IC, double approximately every two years. Is there another one that specifies some limits?
The summary doesn't say what size, and the article merely says "40 atoms in width" (presumable carbon atoms? Who knows?)
Apparently it's a technology that will coincide with the 7nm node.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I've seen tons of articles like this over the last decade, touting carbon nanotubes as being the enabling technology for all sorts of improved applications.
Can anyone actually point me to something that has made it to production utilizing carbon nanotubes? I'm not being snarky here - I'm really curious to know if any of this is actually getting off the workbench into mainstream use anywhere.
Carbon nanotubes hit me as being a wonder invention like nuclear fusion; if we can build it it will be awesome, but we probably won't be able to build it for at least $DATE + 20 years.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
"Moving beyond the limits of silicon transistors requires both a high-performance channel and high-quality electrical contacts. Carbon nanotubes provide high-performance channels below 10 nanometers, but as with silicon, the increase in contact resistance with decreasing size becomes a major performance roadblock. We report a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) transistor technology with an end-bonded contact scheme that leads to size-independent contact resistance to overcome the scaling limits of conventional side-bonded or planar contact schemes. A high-performance SWNT transistor was fabricated with a sub–10-nanometer contact length, showing a device resistance below 36 kilohms and on-current above 15 microampere per tube. The p-type end-bonded contact, formed through the reaction of molybdenum with the SWNT to form carbide, also exhibited no Schottky barrier. This strategy promises high-performance SWNT transistors, enabling future ultimately scaled device technologies."
This is way cool.
What does this technological advancement translate to in terms of porn?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The fact that moving electrons have an external magnetic field coupled with the fact that they can tunnel across short distances would, I think, tend to place a rather hard limit on how small you can make electronic components that still function in a predictable and consistent manner.
Given that we are talking now about distances that can be measured in only a few dozen atoms of size, I'm pretty sure we're getting pretty darn close to those limits already, and I'm not sure there's any point in trying to shrink electronics any more than we already have.
Photonics, however, holds promise, IMO.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"get the industry past the limits of Moore's law"
I don't recall any limits specified.
The channel lengths were 60 nm. This is massive compared to the latest generation of CMOS (~14 nm).
The confusion seems to come down to the fact that the SWCNT diameter is ~1 nm. However, 14 nm CMOS already uses FinFET's with channel widths of ~8 nm which is ~60 atoms.
Regardless, the science article is actually about improved contact resistance, which is one of the major challenges associated with continued scaling of CMOS. However, they have only been able to show this improvement for p-channel devices, and they state clearly that n-channel devices present a much larger problem. If you want to replace CMOS, you need both n-channel and p-channel devices (not to mention fabrication yield needs to be as close to perfect as Si CMOS is). Thus my subject line (see above).
Did I really just see a "Paid Post" from Amazon embedded with the stories on Slashdot's front page?
... when was the last time you saw Microsoft, Apple or Google doing basic computer research like this?
What shit are you talking about?
When was the last time you heard about Citibank doing transistor research?
I think they happen to not be in that business.
Maybe the workforce they can shrink, but this is not a shrunken transistor.
RTA:
"The advance would make it possible, probably sometime after the beginning of the next decade, to shrink the contact point between the two materials to just 40 atoms in width, the researchers said. Three years later, the number will shrink to just 28 atoms, they predicted."
Their claimed invention is a connect of metal and carbon nano-tube which might enable companies to use non-tube transistors. Well sort of, it looks like they've simply deposited metal on carbon from the photograph, but perhaps there is some invention there.
But the headline, is all that matters for IBM because in a decade's time it will pretend to have invented carbon nanotube transistors and sue the bejeezus out of any company that actually makes them to steal their profits.
I may be misremembering, but I swear I heard a few years ago that we're already past that limit of reliability. The problem would come when the space needed for tiny units + error correction was going to exceed the space needed to just have larger, more predictable units.
what rights people employed by them should have
Thought not.
You're really quite deranged, you know.
Almost CPU technology is CMOS that uses MOSFET, not transistor.
I'm only kidding, I know IBM does have a pretty big basic research program. I'm just shocked it's even operating anymore given how crazy things have been at IBM these days. Why does a white shoe management consulting firm (which is what IBM is trying to turn itself into) still have a lab?
Don't get me wrong - I want them to continue and hopefully they'll get through this crazy period. But now that IBM doesn't manufacture anything other than mainframes and p-series, and no longer owns its own semiconductor fabs, I'm sure semiconductor research will be next on the chopping block.
As often on /. people are unable to read the source they are then transforming in an article on /.
IBM did not shrink transistors, they played around with nano tubes like many other researchers, but they are not closer to an application than any other research facility. Therefore, they did not find a new way, others have constructed similar approaches before, and I doubt that theirs is so different that it can be classified as a "new approach". It is not even a way to shrink transistors, because they fiddle around with a new concept which may lead to an technology. There are at least 10 to 20 years between their "finding" and an application. And finally, what they build is a switch, just because transistors are used as switches, does not mean that every switch is an transistor. Relays are also switches but not transistors.
So actually the title should be: IBM played around with nano tubes and they claim to have found a new way to make a switch.
See subject & this link http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
(You brought that & this, on yourself, trolling me...)
APK
P.S.=> It was a pleasure watching you die, Mr. Anderson... apk
"The advance would make it possible, probably sometime after the beginning of the next decade, to shrink the contact point between the two materials to just 40 atoms in width, the researchers said. Three years later, the number will shrink to just 28 atoms, they predicted."
beginning of the next decade. https://xkcd.com/678/
See subject & this link http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
(You brought that & this, on yourself, trolling me...)
APK
P.S.=> It was a pleasure watching you die, Mr. Anderson... apk
See subject & "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" & you're 'Forrest' http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
(You brought that & this, on yourself, trolling me...)
APK
P.S.=> It was a pleasure watching you die, Mr. Anderson... apk
Bravo, AC, pithy and humorous. +1.
Unfortunately, below is some strange debate about libertarianism. So I am highjacking your top-of-the-thread comment to provide a space for people to discuss:
-TFA/TFS
-Semiconductors and ICs
-Carbon nanotubes
-Anything funny or witty about IBM, electronics, Moore's Law, etc.
-Anything at all remotely on-topic
I actually worked with carbon nanotubes back in the day when I was doing polymer and electronics research. I can attest to how squirrelly they are and how hard it is to get them straightened out and aligned. If IBM can figure out how to do this for transistors in bulk, that'll be one hell of an achievement.
Nothing posted to