From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Sun Jun 10 2001 - 08:47:45 MDT
At a computer conference in Kyoto Japan this weekend Intel announced
that they have made transistors 70 atoms wide and 3 atoms thick that
switched at 1.5 Trillion times a second. Smaller transistors have been
made but this one is significant because they used standard techniques
and the same material used in today's chips.
Ever since Moore formed his famous law people have wondered how long
it would last, in 1993 Moore himself said .25 microns might be the end of
the line but this year .13 micron technology became mainstream. Just
2 years ago Intel scientists wrote in Science that the rate of improvement
will slow down significantly after the .13 micron generation, but now that
same company has demonstrated .045 micron technology and says
Moore's law should stay on track until at least 2014.
In another development IBM said they found that if they put a
physical strain on silicon they can increase the speed of chips by
35% even if you don't make them smaller. The process is not difficult
and the company will start selling such chips in two years.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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