X-Message-Number: 12826
From: 
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 12:05:22 +1000
Subject: Anyone know if this is any good

I came across this article today. I was wondering if anyone knows if has any
real substance to it. I particuarly like that they chose not to patent it. A
real boost in CPU speed could result in faster technology development and

hopefully benefit Cryonics. Anyone have any idea of timescale for this to arrive
in the real world?

Chris

B E R K E L E Y,   Calif.,   Nov. 23

A new semiconductor transistor so small that a single computer chip can hold 400
times more of the devices than before could help lead to significantly faster
and cheaper chip technology, scientists say.

Chenming Hu, a professor electrical engineering and computer sciences at the
University of California, Berkeley, said the tiny transistor was much smaller
than any other ever developed. It?s a new world record, Hu said of the

prototype, dubbed FinFET. Details of the invention, which was funded by the U.S.
Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, will be unveiled next month at the
International Electronic Devices Meeting in Washington. The Berkeley
breakthrough, announced Monday in a news release, changed the design of the
gate, or switch, on the transistor which controls the flow of electric current
in electronic devices.

Bridging the Passage

While previously this gate was a flat conductor that controlled only one side of

the passage through which the current flows, the Berkeley team has redesigned it
as a fork-shaped prong straddling both sides of the passage. This gives much
better control and reduced current leakage, meaning the transistor can be made
much smaller. Hu said the FinFET?s gate is 18 nanometers long, or about the
width of 100 atoms. While far too small to be viewed by the naked eye, it is
visible through a scanning electron microscope. Hu said it was already about 10
times shorter than the standard semiconductor transistor now used by the
industry. And he hoped to cut the FinFET?s length by another half in future.

Electronics ?Growth? Extended

The new transistor could help extend the success of the electronics industry,
which has profited by making transistors ever smaller over the past three

decades and delivering cheaper, better and faster computer brains for electronic

products. Chip engineers have long held that the number of transistors on a chip
will double every 18 months. But scientists believed that the laws of physics
were going to stop that progress soon unless a design breakthrough like that
proposed by Hu proves practical. Hu said the FinFET prototype was successfully
fabricated last July and appeared to perform well. He said no patent had been
taken out on the device. We made the decision not to patent, Hu said. We want
the widest possible usage. We hope this becomes a mainstream transistor
structure in the future.

I also found this reference on the web:

http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~xuejue/research_right.htm

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