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IBM Hardware

IBM Demonstrates High-k/Metal Gate Chips 72

Posted by kdawson from the faster-and-thriftier dept.
Last summer we discussed twin announcements from Intel and IBM/AMD about a new chip manufacturing technology dubbed high-k/metal gate. Intel is using the tech to improve speed and power consumption in its 45-nm chips. IBM, along with its manufacturing partners, just demonstrated chips it says show that high-k/metal gate technology at 32 nm can result in performance gains up to 30% and power savings up to 50%, compared to 45-nm process. IBM plans to be manufacturing 32 nm parts by the end of 2009. (AMD is not using high-k/metal gate yet, but it has access to the technology by virtue of its agreements with IBM.)
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IBM Demonstrates High-k/Metal Gate Chips More

IBM Demonstrates High-k/Metal Gate Chips

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  • pretty cool (Score:2, Interesting)

    by voislav98 ( 1004117 )
    and it just goes to show that silicon is not dead yet
    • I thought netcraft had to confirm it? My world is crumbling around me, all assumptions I use to define it are void :(

    • Yeah... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jd ( 1658 )
      But Germanium-Arsonide is a much-neglected technology that could do with more investment, as it should do much better than silicon. Graphene is another technology that risks being ignored for as long as silicon is a viable option. I'd far prefer chip companies to be pushing the boundaries with materials that should offer far more extreme performance. Nonetheless, any progress is good progress.

      • Re:Yeah... (Score:5, Informative)

        by andreyvul ( 1176115 ) <andrey.vulNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday April 15, 2008 @06:21PM (#23083748)
        It's not germanium arsenide, it's Gallium (III) Arsenide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GaAs [wikipedia.org]
        On the plus side, this means that solar-powered chips (i.e. transistor and photovoltaic cell on same die) will eventually exist.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jd ( 1658 )
          Ok, ok, I miscounted the protons. Damn fiddly things. Seriously, though, yes, they will someday exist. Such technology was being touted as the replacement for silicon over twenty years ago, though, and it's not happening except in niche markets. For that matter, even ignoring materials for a second, asynchronous circuits have been "just over the horizon" for a very long time, with little real research going into them. Manchester University built an ARM clone using asynch technology, so you can build functio

          • If nobody wants to spend that kind of capital now, can you imagine how much harder it will be in, say, another ten to twenty years time?

            Why in the world would it be "harder" (what does that mean? more expensive?) to make a capital investment in new tech 10-20 years from now compared to now? Do you expect technology to get more expensive? Will we reduce our understanding in this time period? What is this mechanism that, for the first time ever in history, will make it harder to invest in new technology

            • If you're assuming I mean that the product will sell enough to make a profit, you're either an idiot or a troll. I'm talking about being a serious competitior, which means greater volumes and lower point-of-sale costs of sufficient margin to make it worthwhile for the Microns or the AMDs of the world to switch their entire fabrication infrastructure over. Anything less is not seriously competing, it's merely surviving. For now. Niche markets can dry up at any time.

              Yes, it does get more expensive. Inflatio

        • That, of course, assumes that sunlight will ever come anywhere near my computer and I, tucked in the corner of my mother's basement! Bwahahahaha!

      • Graphene is not at all nearly ready to even build reliable, well-performing transistors with it. I'm in a research group that is trying to implant a gate electrode into Silicon-carbide with a Graphene layer ontop, but that's still basic research. If it should really work with good yield and that also in an industrial process, then we can talk about Graphene-based CPUs.

        And by the way: it's spelled "Arsenide"

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jd ( 1658 )
          True, it's not ready now, but research and development budgets are finite and therefore the more that is spent on silicon, the less you can spend on graphene and the longer it will take for graphene VLSI to be a practical day-to-day thing. My big concern is that, as is the case with nuclear fusion, the amount spent will be too small in comparison to the amount required to produce useful (in the marketplace) results. The absolute amounts don't matter, if there isn't a viable product being shipped, and althou

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Kjella ( 173770 )

            True, it's not ready now, but research and development budgets are finite and therefore the more that is spent on silicon, the less you can spend on graphene and the longer it will take for graphene VLSI to be a practical day-to-day thing. My big concern is that, as is the case with nuclear fusion, the amount spent will be too small in comparison to the amount required to produce useful (in the marketplace) results.

            That assumes graphene will overtake silicon, as if that's a certainty. Silicon has scaled extremely well now for 30 years and all the people thinking "this has got to stop soon" have been proven wrong time and time again. If the silicon improvements bottom out, one also has to ask how much more is there to gain? Are the the same fundamental limits going to hit graphene? You got to ask when they're showing 300-atom (32nm) thick layers now with plans for going near 100 atoms. Can it really be packed that muc

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by imgod2u ( 812837 )
        I think you mean Gallium Arsenide and Cray tried to use it. There are some inherent disadvantages to GaAs when it comes to digital circuits. For one, there's currently no way of making a good p-type semiconductor out of it. Back before CMOS, it might have competed with silicon but just about all digital logic is CMOS and for good reason.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jd ( 1658 )
          I think the key word is "currently". There are some genuinely unsolvable problems, and it's sometimes even possible to prove in advance that those problems are unsolvable (eg: there's a constraints conflict in the problem itself), but as our experience with silicon has shown, material science has plenty of surprises to offer the unwary adventuresome researcher. The key is the research. Someone has to go out and look in order to find. Now, what you find is not necessarily what you are looking for, but the tw
          • Do you really think no one does any research into anything but silicon? Have you ever actually read a materials science journal?

            You've posted several "anti-silicon" rants in this thread, each of which is totally devoid of fact, understanding of the sciences involved, or even critical thinking. I've never seen such an irrational response to an element before, so I have to ask: Did silicon kick your dog or rape your mother or something?

            • How... (Score:2)

              by jd ( 1658 )
              ...may I ask, is it a rant to say that progress is non-linear and finite in any field? Did your great-to-the-nth-degree grandfather invest too heavily in the flint mines to notice that stone was close to the limits of what could be done with the medium and copper was the way to go? (Followed by bronze, followed by iron.) Every era has a dawn and a dusk. It's not an anti-this or a pro-that, it's simply the way technology functions. We don't use CISC chips any more, they're RISC or hybrid. Steam-powered train
              • To replace an established technology, the newcomer has to be both suitable and mature. That point did not come for any competing technology you named yet. It will, when the time comes, but, like with a Greyhound bus, you will not make it arrive faster by ranting on slashdot.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by jd ( 1658 )
                  You still haven't said how it is "ranting" for me to point out that new technologies must supercede older ones, and that they can only do so if developed. Technology does not grow on trees, maturity doesn't just happen and your ravings about Greyhound won't make advancement any cleaner.
      • Help prevent lameness, use a filter.

  • M is for MOSFET (Score:4, Informative)

    by IorDMUX ( 870522 ) <mark.zimmerman3@gm a i l . c om> on Tuesday April 15, 2008 @04:21PM (#23082862) Homepage
    I know that I've posted about this before, but...
    Huzzah! For the first time in 25 years, the name MOSFET ( Metal -Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) will correctly describe the device that goes by that name!

    (For those confused as to my jubilation, highly doped polysilicon replaced metal gates over 25 years ago. As a result most MOSFETS haven't actually had metal in them since.)

    • Re:M is for MOSFET (Score:5, Informative)

      by Cyclon ( 900781 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2008 @04:43PM (#23083014)
      Huzzah! For the first time in 25 years, the name MOSFET ( Metal -Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) will correctly describe the device that goes by that name!

      Sort of. The gate is still mostly poly, with a relatively thin metal layer below it. Also, the devices use a high-k material like HfO2 for the dielectric, with a thin silicon oxynitride mobility enhancement layer. There's a decent overview at Semiconductor International [semiconductor.net]

  • I hope AMD uses this technology (Score:3, Interesting)

    by moderatorrater ( 1095745 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2008 @04:31PM (#23082990)
    AMD earned my loyalty many times over the years, and now that it's fallen from the top of the price/performance heap, I feel bad buying another chip. This is the company who made the chip for my first computer, that made 64 bit mainstream, and made intel actually improve their products. They've done so much for the industry, it'd be a shame for them to continue taking a pounding like they have.

    Also, I own some of their stock. Go team!

    • Re:I hope AMD uses this technology (Score:4, Insightful)

      by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2008 @05:01PM (#23083040) Homepage Journal
      Why would a large international company need your loyalty? You should buy whatever has a good price and good quality. Although you can argue that once AMD is no longer a mainstream processor vendor that Intel will raise their prices.

      • Re:I hope AMD uses this technology (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Saffaya ( 702234 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2008 @05:15PM (#23083152)

        You should buy whatever has a good price and good quality.
        I disagree in the sense that your comment is incomplete.

        The moral behaviour of the company making the product is to be taken into account, at least it is in my case.

        If company A has tried to screw me over several times (defective products), kept lying about it, and engages in generally anti-competitive behaviour, then I will buy products from company B instead.
        Even if B's product are less competitive by a certain margin left to my appreciation.

        Some will say that I am acting against how the market is supposed to work, that is not true.
        Business honesty and customer consideration IS valuable to my eyes, and I factor it in the final price of the product.

        Hence, I will pay more to buy B's product.

        • Re:I hope AMD uses this technology (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Chris Burke ( 6130 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2008 @05:44PM (#23083410) Homepage
          The moral behaviour of the company making the product is to be taken into account, at least it is in my case.

          Some will say that I am acting against how the market is supposed to work, that is not true.

          Well if you listen to the die-hard capitalists (in particular the Randian strain of Libertarian), then basing purchasing decisions on the moral behavior of the company is your only valid way of preventing them from screwing you seven ways till sunday. Because any actual law that prohibited such immoral behavior would be at least as immoral as the behavior itself.

          And not so die-hard capitalists will also agree that not buying a company's products because of their behavior is a valid way to punish them, even if there are laws that also prohibit such behavior.

          Pretty much the only people who will say you are acting against how the market is supposed to work are die-hard sociopaths who don't care that some behavior is "immoral", and want you to keep lining their pockets regardless of what evil things they do in the name of making a buck, and the argument is solely a way of tricking you into ignoring your own moral outrage.

          • Pretty much the only people who will say you are acting against how the market is supposed to work are die-hard sociopaths who don't care that some behavior is "immoral", and want you to keep lining their pockets regardless of what evil things they do in the name of making a buck, and the argument is solely a way of tricking you into ignoring your own moral outrage.

            Don't forget all the graduate students in economics whose brilliant Phd theses turn out to have no bearing to reality whatsoever due to such abberant purchasing behavior. :)

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Trogre ( 513942 )
            I would like to go one step further and claim that in this corrupt age, the only way to vote with any effect on your rulers whatsoever is not with a ballot box, but with your wallet.

            IMHO, that's the secret, chaps. Power's all in your wallet. Use it wisely.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by TheRecklessWanderer ( 929556 )
          Good for you!

          I used to buy a lot of maxtor drives. Probably 2 or 300 a month. Then I tried to return one, and they gave me a hard time.

          Now I buy a lot of Seagate and WD Drives. No Maxto Drives.

          Since Seagate and Maxtor have jumped in bed together, I just buy WD Drives.

        • The caveat to this, in my opinion, is the recent debacle with the bugged Phenom chips. Sure, they didn't lie about it (at least, not after it came out), but they did (AFAIK, please do correct me if I'm in fact wrong) keep selling the things at the same prices and without specifically mentioning the fact that they'd need a bios fix that would drop their effective speeds by a significant percentage. So I wouldn't say AMD is entirely beyond criticism either.
        • sure. if you want to blacklist a company that's fine. But I highly doubt that there can be much legitimate complaint about the business practices of AMD or Intel. (maybe I'm being naive)

          consumers buy things according to value. If supporting a bad company is bad, then that decreases the value. But you will find that if a company offers something that is very deal even if they are a filthy company people will still buy it. A couple examples are: HP printers, and all products from Sony.

          Hence, I will pay more to buy B's product.

          Normal people do this e

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well...if you just need a good reason to continue supporting AMD, here's one:

      The fastest FSB on any Intel laptop chip today is 800MHz. The Slowest (and ONLY) FSB on any AMD chip today is 1600MHz, or 1.6GHz. This means that even if an intel chip can process data 60% faster (and currently even their best chip is only 40% faster than AMD's worst chip and even with a biased, paid for test. A real test of a comperable AMD lends about a 5% greater speed with a 2% margin of error.) the Intel system can still on
      • Ok, you mentioned consoles, processors, AND GPUs all in one siitng, and you're an AC, and you still have a positive mod? You sir, have impressed me.
      • It's funny how you distort the numbers precisely how salespeople do.

        If your AMD processors are so fast and great, explain to me why the flagship Phenom can't beat a year-old Intel Q6600 running at what you imply is an inferior FSB clock ?

        Here's my take, as a low-volume computer supplier. AMD processors look good on paper, they keep inching HyperTransport speeds up with each new platform, great! Their processors also tend to be a bit cheaper than Intels, great too! But then you have to buy high-end memory

        • Say all you want about theoretical limits, at the end of the day the client cares about two things:
          What if they are buying it in the morning?

          • ... at the end of the day the client cares about two things:

            What if they are buying it in the morning?
            Then when the customer leaves, you pack your tent, burn your signage, and move to the other end of the market. When they return "at the end of the day", you disclaim all knowledge of that other thieving operation that sold them their system at such an exorbitant price.

      • It means if you're trying to do a little processing to a lot of data (i.e. watch a movie, manage a database, etc) the AMD will vastly outperform the Intel.

        Tom's Hardware doesn't agree. Comparing, as you put it, the best versus the best (I chose the Intel QX9775 vs Phenom 9700, but I don't think it matters):

        The best AMD cpu uses almost 3 times as much CPU time to play a Blu-Ray disk [tomshardware.com]

        This CloneDVD test is mostly disk I/O bound -- but the Intel is one-third faster [tomshardware.com]

        This WinRAR test is probably disk/d [tomshardware.com]

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by CajunArson ( 465943 )
        This shit gets modded insightful? I had long suspected that to get an insightful mod on this website all you had to do was follow the formula of: 1. bash a company that has earned Slashdot's 2 minutes of hate award (Intel here); 2. blather on for more than 4 words to give the illusion of thought; 3. Throw in some non sequitur numbers to look like you know math.

        I don't have time to take apart every number in this stupid troll but, first of all: AMD does not use FSB's at all, and you have no idea what the "

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )
      Maybe if you wait, some other company will make a POS chip that runs hot.

      "that made 64 bit mainstream, "

      bwahahahahaha.

      "and made intel actually improve their products. "
      I repeat:
      BWahahahahaha.

      "They've done so much for the industry,"
      the only thing they did was delay entry of multiple cores by creating a MHz war.

      Sell.

    • You make me feel so old. Zilog [wikipedia.org] made the CPU for my first personal computer. Over the years I've used Motorola, IBM, Intel, and AMD chips. No company has my loyalty in that regard; I buy what works best for my needs at the time.

  • High K is nothing new (Score:5, Funny)

    by LM741N ( 258038 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2008 @05:06PM (#23083086)
    I've been getting my seeds from the Netherlands for some time now.
  • because I have an ongoing discussion about this topic, and I want to know, in what part of that spectrum (45 - 32 - 29 nm) is Intel at this moment? Are they already manufacturing chips with such technology?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Cyclon ( 900781 )
      Intel has deployed a high-k/metal gate device architecture at 45 nm [intel.com].

  • Barbie sez, math iz hard! (Score:5, Informative)

    by pla ( 258480 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2008 @05:48PM (#23083452) Journal
    high-k/metal gate technology at 32 nm can result in performance gains up to 30% and power savings up to 50%, compared to 45-nm process.

    Really revolutionary announcement there...

    Power consumption scales with the square of gate size. (32*32)/(45*45) = 0.51, or 50%.

    Clock speed scales linearly with gate size. 32/45 = 0.71, or 29%.


    Not to minimize the fact that these gates reduce leakage enough to actually get those gains, but the drop in gate size alone (all other factors equal) would give the same numbers.

    • Re:Barbie sez, math iz hard! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Chris Burke ( 6130 ) on Tuesday April 15, 2008 @06:45PM (#23084016) Homepage
      Not to minimize the fact that these gates reduce leakage enough to actually get those gains, but the drop in gate size alone (all other factors equal) would give the same numbers.

      Yeah, but that's a pretty big freaking deal. Leakage current has come to dominate (or at least become a factor as significant as switching current), and is actually increasing as the technology shrinks. Going to 32nm, without paying a penalty in increased leakage, is quite an accomplishment.

      Or put another way, all other factors being equal (including the dielectric), a drop in gate size alone would not result in the same numbers.

      I know you said you aren't trying to minimize their accomplishment, but by saying it simply follows a basic equation when that equation has been failing for the past few generations (because it's not correct at these scales), you're doing just that.
    • that's not true at all.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )
      Not to minimize the fact that these gates reduce leakage enough to actually get those gains, but the drop in gate size alone (all other factors equal) would give the same numbers.

      Or let us try to describe that a different way. Thirty years ago they used a foot of dry wall (30cm ~ 3000nm) to separate your apartment from the next one. Now they've told you they're going to reduce it from 0.45cm to 0.32 cm and still give you the same solid wall, noise issolation etc. as before. Sounds a little harder now, eh? A

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