Just a small point: hydrogen and helium are not cheaper than milk, nitrogen is. Before the US started selling its "strategic helium reserve" liquid helium was ~$11 per liter, now it is around $5. The US uses liquid helium to create solid hydrogen for its atomic weapons, most of which have been decommissioned.
Liquid nitrogen, on the other hand, costs about $0.11 per liter, much cheaper than milk.
No, IBM has gone to copper interconnects, which have lower resistance than the current aluminum ones that everyone else uses. IBM's innovation was finding a way to keep the copper from sinking into the silicon and ruining the delicate transistors underneath.
Intel is actually talking about replacing the gate dielectric (which is silicon dioxide currently, even at IBM) with a metal or metal oxide, which has a higher dielectric constant. Higher dielectric constants mean a more effective gate for the same thickness, or the same gate effect for a thicker layer (and hence less leakage).
Intel is also apparently talking about replacing the polysilicon gate with an actual metal gate. Polysilicon is used for gates because it doesn't melt when the chip is annealed (an important processing step), like metal would. Intel's innovation is apparently figuring out a way to get around this problem.
Yes, metals (like Nickel) do conduct electricity, but most metal oxides do not! I suspect the mystery Intel metal and the AMD Nickel dielectrics are actually metal oxides. The benefit of metal oxides is that they have huge dielectric constants (which make better capacitative gates). I believe the world champion dielectric material is actually an oxide of Tantalum, but I cannot remember off the top of my head.
As for the phonon question: in crystals the quantum of atomic motion is called a phonon. Electrons can scatter off of phonons, reducing the mobility and hence increasing the resistance. Two ways around this: lower the temperature, which suppresses the creation of phonons, or use a heavier material, which is harder to move and hence phonons take more energy to create. Using a metal gate dielectric (heavier material) traps any phonon which touches it, reducing the concentration of phonons near the surface, where the conduction electrons are.
Diamonds? Until the diamond fabrication process becomes much more advanced, diamonds are a waste of time. Impurities are the culprit here. Many impurities = low mobility electrons = crappy chips.
Electrical grade silicon (EGS) has a long purification process that it must go through to be of sufficient quality to make chips from. To give an example, there are roughly Avogadro's number of silicon atoms in one cubic centimeter of silicon (5.5x10^22 atoms / cc). After being purified, the MAXIMUM impurity concentration is ~10^14 atoms / cc. This is around 1 part per 100 million. The best laboratory grade Si is 100 times better than that!
Contrast this with diamond: even the best artificial diamonds have so many impurities that you can see them with the naked eye. So even if diamond semiconductor chips can be made (SiC is much more likely) we won't be able to use them for anything like what we do now until the purification process is improved.
I think one point people keep coming back to is that the state of California might actually make money suing spammers. That would be a terrible idea. The point of the fine is not to make money for the government (however much they need it) but to stop the offending behavior for the benefit of the people. The government's legal costs are supported by taxes, not fines. Not that spending millions of dollars of government money appeals to me, but we as users of the Internet do see some benefit.
Now imagine an over-zealous government agency bringing in money from these suits, and you can easily see someone getting caught in the crossfire. There is a small town near me, sitting right beside a stretch of Interstate 90 that has become one of the worst speed traps in the area. There is actually no property or income tax in this town, as it is entirely supported by speeding ticket fines. There is basically no redress once you are given the ticket, as the courts will nearly always side with the officer. What is to stop California (or any other state) from making this a speeding-ticket style offense?
Bottom line, the government should make money from taxes and tariffs (well, maybe not tariffs) and not from fines.
Unfortunately, I don't forsee a space race between the US and China heating up until the Chinese do something that the US has been unable to do. The US-USSR space race was panned here in the US until the Russians launched Sputnik. What might the impetus be in the US-China space race? A lunar colony? A Mars mission?
Here's to hoping they get a race for a space elevator started!
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Liquid nitrogen, on the other hand, costs about $0.11 per liter, much cheaper than milk.
Slashdotters are obviously fans of the Temptations.
Intel is actually talking about replacing the gate dielectric (which is silicon dioxide currently, even at IBM) with a metal or metal oxide, which has a higher dielectric constant. Higher dielectric constants mean a more effective gate for the same thickness, or the same gate effect for a thicker layer (and hence less leakage).
Intel is also apparently talking about replacing the polysilicon gate with an actual metal gate. Polysilicon is used for gates because it doesn't melt when the chip is annealed (an important processing step), like metal would. Intel's innovation is apparently figuring out a way to get around this problem.
As for the phonon question: in crystals the quantum of atomic motion is called a phonon. Electrons can scatter off of phonons, reducing the mobility and hence increasing the resistance. Two ways around this: lower the temperature, which suppresses the creation of phonons, or use a heavier material, which is harder to move and hence phonons take more energy to create. Using a metal gate dielectric (heavier material) traps any phonon which touches it, reducing the concentration of phonons near the surface, where the conduction electrons are.
Electrical grade silicon (EGS) has a long purification process that it must go through to be of sufficient quality to make chips from. To give an example, there are roughly Avogadro's number of silicon atoms in one cubic centimeter of silicon (5.5x10^22 atoms / cc). After being purified, the MAXIMUM impurity concentration is ~10^14 atoms / cc. This is around 1 part per 100 million. The best laboratory grade Si is 100 times better than that!
Contrast this with diamond: even the best artificial diamonds have so many impurities that you can see them with the naked eye. So even if diamond semiconductor chips can be made (SiC is much more likely) we won't be able to use them for anything like what we do now until the purification process is improved.
I think one point people keep coming back to is that the state of California might actually make money suing spammers. That would be a terrible idea. The point of the fine is not to make money for the government (however much they need it) but to stop the offending behavior for the benefit of the people. The government's legal costs are supported by taxes, not fines. Not that spending millions of dollars of government money appeals to me, but we as users of the Internet do see some benefit. Now imagine an over-zealous government agency bringing in money from these suits, and you can easily see someone getting caught in the crossfire. There is a small town near me, sitting right beside a stretch of Interstate 90 that has become one of the worst speed traps in the area. There is actually no property or income tax in this town, as it is entirely supported by speeding ticket fines. There is basically no redress once you are given the ticket, as the courts will nearly always side with the officer. What is to stop California (or any other state) from making this a speeding-ticket style offense? Bottom line, the government should make money from taxes and tariffs (well, maybe not tariffs) and not from fines.
Unfortunately, I don't forsee a space race between the US and China heating up until the Chinese do something that the US has been unable to do. The US-USSR space race was panned here in the US until the Russians launched Sputnik. What might the impetus be in the US-China space race? A lunar colony? A Mars mission? Here's to hoping they get a race for a space elevator started!