[Infowarrior] - IBM's 'frozen chip' claims speed record

[Richard Forno]

http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189500692
IBM's 'frozen chip' claims speed record

Mark LaPedus     
EE Times
(06/20/2006 12:11 AM EDT)

SAN JOSE, Calif. ‹ IBM Corp. and the Georgia Institute of Technology Tuesday
(June 20) claimed they have broken the silicon speed record, thanks in part
to a "frozen chip."

IBM (Armonk, N.Y.) and Georgia Tech (Atlanta) claimed that they have
demonstrated the first silicon-based chip capable of operating at
frequencies above 500 GHz by cryogenically "freezing" the circuit to minus
451 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 Kelvins).

By comparison, 500 GHz is more than 250 times faster than today's cell
phones, which typically operate at approximately 2 GHz, according to the
organizations.

The experiments, conducted jointly by IBM and Georgia Tech, are part of a
project to explore the ultimate speed limits of silicon germanium (SiGe)
devices, which are said to operate faster at cold temperatures.

Ultrahigh-frequency SiGe circuits have potential applications in commercial
communications systems, military electronics, space and remote sensing. The
research could make possible a new class of powerful, low-energy chips that
will deliver future applications like HDTV and movie-quality video to
cellphones, automobiles and other devices.

The chips used in the research are from a prototype fourth-generation SiGe
technology fabricated by IBM on 200-mm wafers. At room temperature, the
circuits operated at approximately 350 GHz.

"For the first time, Georgia Tech and IBM have demonstrated that speeds of
half a trillion cycles per second can be achieved in a commercial
silicon-based technology, using large wafers and silicon-compatible low-cost
manufacturing techniques," John Cressler, Byers Professor in Georgia Tech's
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and a researcher in the
Georgia Electronic Design Center at Georgia Tech, said in a statement.

"This groundbreaking collaborative research by Georgia Tech and IBM
redefines the performance limits of silicon-based semiconductors," Bernie
Meyerson, vice president and chief technologist at IBM Systems and
Technology Group, said in the same statement.

In addition to Cressler, the team included Georgia Tech PhD students
Ramkumar Krithivasan and Yuan Lu; Jae-Sun Rieh of Korea University in Seoul
(formerly with IBM); and Marwan Khater, David Ahlgren and Greg Freeman of
IBM Microelectronics (East Fishkill, N.Y.) The accomplishment will be
reported in the July issue of the journal IEEE Electron Device Letters.

‹Nicolas Mokhoff contributed to this article from Manhasset, N.Y.