More on Moore's Law

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MSI
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More on Moore's Law

Post by MSI »

Excellent article in the NY Times about the status of Moore's law (which isn't a law, just an observation/prediction) that
  • "the number of transistors that could be etched on a chip would double annually for at least a decade, leading to astronomical increases in computer power.
    In recent years, however, the acceleration predicted by Moore’s Law has slipped. Chip speeds stopped increasing almost a decade ago, the time between new generations is stretching out, and the cost of individual transistors has plateaued"
I've had the pleasure of riding the wave doing simulation software on mainframes, mini's and now PC's which of course included the amazingly fast chips available today. It continues to be a fun ride!

See the full article:
MSI
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Re: More on Moore's Law

Post by MSI »

Oct 1, 2015: Guess IBM refuses to adhere to the assumption that tranistors can't be shrunk anymore, so More of Moore may be possible!
From NYTimes: IBM Scientists Find New Way to Shrink Transistors
  • On Thursday IBM scientists reported that they now believe they see a path around the wall. Writing in the journal Science, a team at the company’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center said it has found a new way to make transistors from parallel rows of carbon nanotubes.
    The advance is based on a new way to connect ultrathin metal wires to the nanotubes that will make it possible to continue shrinking the width of the wires without increasing electrical resistance
    The ability to reduce electrical resistance will not only make it possible to extend the process of shrinking transistors beyond long-held beliefs about physical limits. It may also be the key to once again increasing the speed of computer processors, which has been stalled for the last decade.
    The IBM researchers said that, in simulations, they had been able to design versions of microprocessors that were optimized either for high performance or for low power consumption.
    By simply swapping carbon nanotube transistors for conventional ones in a simulated IBM microprocessor, they were able to increase speeds by a factor of seven, or, alternatively, achieve power savings almost as significant, said Wilfried Haensch, an IBM physicist who is a member of the research group.
See the full NYTimes Article: IBM Scientists Find New Way to Shrink Transistors

Also the Science Journal Article:
  • End-bonded contacts for carbon nanotube transistors with low, size-independent resistance
    • Qing Cao*, Shu-Jen Han, Jerry Tersoff, Aaron D. Franklin†, Yu Zhu, Zhen Zhang‡, George S. Tulevski, Jianshi Tang, Wilfried Haensch
      ABSTRACT:
      • Moving beyond the limits of silicon transistors requires both a high-performance channel and high-quality electrical contacts. Carbon nanotubes provide high-performance channels below 10 nanometers, but as with silicon, the increase in contact resistance with decreasing size becomes a major performance roadblock. We report a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) transistor technology with an end-bonded contact scheme that leads to size-independent contact resistance to overcome the scaling limits of conventional side-bonded or planar contact schemes. A high-performance SWNT transistor was fabricated with a sub–10-nanometer contact length, showing a device resistance below 36 kilohms and on-current above 15 microampere per tube. The p-type end-bonded contact, formed through the reaction of molybdenum with the SWNT to form carbide, also exhibited no Schottky barrier. This strategy promises high-performance SWNT transistors, enabling future ultimately scaled device technologies.
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