IBM has announced a new kind of isolation technology that can lead to up to 35% faster circuits consuming 15% less power. The secret is that IBM has been able to tame the power of vacuum and use it as isolation. This is something many have wanted and trying to do, but no one has been able to do before IBM. They pack a layer of polymers on top of the silicon, which is then baked, which in turn makes the polymers contract and form trillions of uniformed holes 20nm across, somewhat misleadingly called “air-gaps.” These holes are then used to lay out the copper wires on top of the silicon and create an isolation through the vacuum.
The reason they haven’t been able to do this before is that the previous polymers created holes that were more like a Swiss cheese instead of a uniformity. The new polymer acts in a completely uniform manner and has made it possible to manufacture prototype circuits. Vacuum is considered to be the best isolation you can find for circuits wiring, simply because there is nothing that can disturb or lead the electrons on to different paths.
“Until now, chip designers often were forced to fight capacitance issues by pushing ever more power through chips creating, in the process, a range of other problems. They have also used insulators with better insulating capability, but these insulators have become tenuously fragile as chip features get smaller and smaller, and their insulating properties do not compare to those of a vacuum.”
IBM is hoping to have the technology ready for mass production in 2009 and will then license the technology to eager partners, which we hope include AMD. Those who want to know more about IBM’s new technology can turn to IBM’s press release.
