IBM and AMD Create First 22nm SRAM Cell 83
arcticstoat notes an announcement from IBM that, along with technology partners, they have produced the first working sample of a SRAM cell built on a 22nm fabrication process. According to the article, this represents the next generation after 32nm process chips and won't be in products for some years. "The technology was developed with several partners, including AMD, Toshiba, STMicroelectronics and Freescale, as well as the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, where IBM performs a lot of its semiconductor research. IBM says that the cell's development involved 'novel fabrication processes,' including high-NA immersion lithography..., high-K metal gate stacks, extremely thin silicide, damascene copper contacts, and advanced activation techniques."
IBM and AMD (Score:2)
My, my... take that Intel.
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Yes, it's very impressive that it took IBM, AMD, Toshiba, STMicroelectronics and Freescale, as well as the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering to beat intel at their own game.
Re:IBM and AMD (Score:5, Funny)
Morgan Freeman? Is that you? [xkcd.com]
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Son, I believe you may be suffering from a disorder known as Freemanic Paracusia. ... isn't that something...
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In other news IBM and AMD have hired linguists to invent new words for this process. "silicide, damascene copper contacts, and advanced activation techniques." seemed far to cool to saddle with the brand- name of the new "Blubberon(TM)" and "Humpderon(TM) processor line.
Re:IBM and AMD (Score:4, Informative)
Is that what you meant to say?
Silicide [wikipedia.org]. Damascene [wikipedia.org]. And have you never heard of a Damascene conversion?
Ah, Silicide (Score:5, Funny)
Like when a clown kills itself.
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The pope finds your lack of faith distrubing.
Re:IBM and AMD (Score:5, Informative)
In other news IBM and AMD have hired linguists to invent new words for this process. "silicide, damascene copper contacts, and advanced activation techniques." seemed far to cool to saddle with the brand- name of the new "Blubberon(TM)" and "Humpderon(TM) processor line.
You need to think before mouthing off in ignorance.
Silicides are silicon based compounds, eg Copper Silicide, Cu_5 S. The high purity of the Si used by IBM etc means that the formation of Silicides in their samples is unlikely to come from impurities in the wafers (Fe, Co, Ni and other transition metals are generally the worst offenders). So they are most likely to form at Si-stack interfaces after annealing (essentially baking) their samples (chips).
Damascene copper is contacts are small interconnects made in multi-step stages.
1.There's a lithography step (patterning & chemical wet-etch) to make trenches for the copper connects.
2.Followed by either electrochemical deposition, or sputtering of the copper.
3.Finally after an etch/polishing step you have your connects.
"advanced activation techniques" refers to modifying the surface of the silicon wafer, and/or deposited layers on the silicon to increase deposition rate, and current efficiency. In the case of electrodeposition, you need to aim for a current efficiency of more than 10% (as in, for a given applied potential, measured current/charge, how much metal has been deposited compared to what you would expect). An electrochemist working in industry would be able to give a much more accurate value than this.
It's all a lot more complicated than this, and optimising each step is a painstaking process, and yes IAAPBOWIMSNSP (I am a physicist, but one working in magnetic systems not semiconductor physics), but that is the general gist of it.
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I took that to mean activation of dopants for very thin channels.
Re:IBM and AMD (Score:4, Interesting)
Almost...
Silicides are used to create low resistivity contacts to doped silicon. Typically a metal is deposited on the wafer surface and then heated to react with the crystalline substrate to form the silicide. Commonly used silicides are NiSi, CoSi and TiSi.
You got the copper right. The here appears to be that they are using copper down to the silicon substrate. Copper does easily "poison" the electrically active regions and is hence typically only used in higher level wiring layers. Getting it down to the silicon is challenging.
The advanced activation techniques refer to thermal processing steps that are used to incorporporate N and P dopants into the crystal lattice. The challenge here is to heat the wafer to above 1000C within seconds. IBM is probably a laser or flash lamp process for this.
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However, isn't a flash lamp (RTA) the standard process?
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Normal RTA uses halogen lamps with relatively slow ramp rates and process times in seconds to minutes. FLA operates in the millesecond regime - fast enough to heat only the wafer surface.
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methinks you take a joke to seriously. Getting out of the bunny suit sometime might be instructive...
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You're a murderer.
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I always wonder with these posts, are they clever white racist propaganda implying that all black guys are gay, or clever black racist propaganda implying that white racists are all idiots, or stupid black racist propaganda implying that white people should be afraid of gay black men?
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Shaquawn, it's after nine, and you guys still haven't shown up! You promised!
*sigh*
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No, STMicroelectronics + Intel = Numonyx
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Who cares if you're selling 10,000 instead of 1,000,000 if you're making 1000 times the profit?
cool (Score:2, Insightful)
now if AMD could get their 45nm yeild above, say, zero percent, they'd be rockin!
When will it stop? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:When will it stop? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, a single silicon atom has a radius of 110pm. I assume silicon dioxide molecule is ~500pm, which is something like 40X smaller than the 22nm process.
However, silicone dioxide is not perfectly stable and can "leak", as far as I understand it, which limits the process somewhat.
Again, assuming you need something 100X larger area-wise, you're looking at maybe a factor of 4X remaining until the process can't be shrunk any further.
But I am not an engineer.
Re:When will it stop? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the limits we're hitting at the moment are not so much due to the material we're cutting into, but the light we're using to do so. To cut finer we need narrower wavelength (=higher energy) light. We're already hitting the very high end of the ultra-violet spectrum (around 10nm) and approaching x-ray light. As the wavelength decreases, all sorts of other things start to change. Materials the used to reflect the light now start letting photons through, lenses no longer have any effect etc, so new ways have to be found to control light at higher frequencies.
But even here there are ideas to get around the problems, such as using quantum effects like creating interference patterns (I believe I read recently, but don't quote me on it) to cut details finer than the wavelength of the light.
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Finally! a use for Xasers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maser#Terminology [wikipedia.org]
seriously though, lithography is running into problems working at the scale we're already at, much less at 22nm, but 'lasers' can correct lithography errors to a much higher detail than even 22 nm parts. i think there are going to a be lot of laser corrective surgery on microprocessors to allow the die to keep shrinking.
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Re:When will it stop? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't mean to be offensive, but almost all those numbers are just pulled from your ass (and I am sure you'll agree).
For the record, today exist technologies for depositing atomic monolayers of various oxides and even elements. Also, if you think of it, CNTs are nothing more than graphene cylinders - therefore, a carbon atom monolayer.
Furthermore, CMOS transistors with 17nm long gates have been fabricated already in the distant 2006. Planar CMOS with gates of 15nm have been fabricated in "prehistoric" 2001! And if you think that is impressive, check out this article from the even more distant past [aip.org]
So, 22nm is far from a physical limit, which is a statement easily demonstrated - by historical events, so to say.
Re:Good guess (Score:2)
I did pull them out of my ass. I do, however, have a gift for making up numbers that turn out to be right.
All you really need is a factual number to start from, a large pool of general knowledge, and some common sense... and usually you can guestimate to within one order of magnitude or... within a log2 of the answer, as I did.
Don't be intimidated by numbers.
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The problem with current techniques for turning carbon into nanotubes is that they're about as controllable as creating glass by striking sand with a few hundred kV.
Re:When will it stop? (Score:4, Insightful)
I did study electronic engineering, but it was 14 years ago and I'm not sure my answer's much better ...
A popular on-line encyclopaedia says that Silicon has a Van der Waals radius (the size if we pretend the atom is a solid sphere) of 210pm - over 100 times less than the 22nm process. If you also count the need to dope the silicon p-type or n-type, grow layers of insulator like silicon dioxide and avoid quantum stuff that I never really understood, then I'd guess at a lower limit of around 25 or so atoms for a workable structure. Let's call it 5nm - hey that's a factor of 4x less than 22nm like you said!
From a different point of view, I've seen papers by groups who have been fabricating structures at the sub-10nm region. Again, perhaps it can be pushed to 5nm.
Beyond that we'll need to think about alternatives - making electrons move faster, like strained silicon does, or giving up silicon for something like diamond (so we can have super-computer bling :)
If the silicon process shrinks every 2-3 years, we'll hit the limit about 10 years. But they said that 10 years ago too!
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This "quantum stuff" you talk about is probably tunnelling, which will make electrons leak the transistors if they are too small.
The exact distance is hard to tell, but in my STM I use around 10 angstroms (fuck ASCII), to get a sizeable current through a potential wall. So, I bet that 20 angstroms would suffice to make it negligible, and so, accounting for other instabilities, I would agree with parent in 5 nm.
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Yes, if there's one lesson to be learned from electronic engineering, it's this: It's all fun and games until someone brings up Quantum Physics.
I became so disillusioned when I learned about tunneler diodes. I thought I was safe from that quantum physics crap.
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Here is where it'll stop (Score:2)
I'm not an engineer, although I studied it. I'm a physicist by training.
You'll not see anything in the 3nm scale on a desktop. It would burn itself up from the heat given off by the electrical energy. The absolute minimum if you find a solution to the heating is 1.5nm. They still have a ways to go. This limit is because you have to have a certain size well to extract electrons from to produce current
If you go the route of using carbon nanotubes you're still going to hit a 1-2nm limit.
So 1.5nm is the end of
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I'm surprised no one has pointed this out yet, but the radius of the atom isn't as critical as the spacing of the atoms in the crystal. For crystalline silicon, you are looking at a spacing between atoms of around 543 pm (why pm? Most people talk about Angstroms at this level?), or about 40 atoms under the gate, of course the channel is smaller than the gate area due to sub-diffusion of the source and drain regions during processing...I miss device enginee
Re:When will it stop? (Score:5, Informative)
yes.
for Silicon it's probably around 10nm or so. as for what is thought to be possible, molecule size components measuring a few nm.
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Assuming of course that there is no advance in technology.
I remember when they said 90nm was the limit of lithography. All the limits fall as there is a massive amount of money going into systems and methods to cheat the "limit". The real physical limit is a single atom width, at that point you can't go smaller, assuming there is a limit other than that single qualifier is dishonest because as with most of the other limits we have found ways to engineer around the "limit". Even if you think there is no way
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To go smaller will take nanotechnology (perhaps carbon nanotubes)
that's the only time we can say that the internet goes to a series of tubes
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How many times does it have to be said: The internet is, in fact, largely composed of a series of tubes containing copper wires and fiber optic cables. Ted Stevens may be an evil idiot, and may have fundamentally misunderstood what the internet is, but his statement was not factually incorrect.
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Think of the potential as a hill. The narrower it gets, the lower it gets too. So at some point the electron does not see any real barrier in your silicon dioxide anymore. In addition to the classic explanation, you also run into a quantum mechanical one involving tunneling. Even i
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Current understanding of quantum mechanics is likely extremely limited. When it starts to be a serious issue with IC's much much more research will be done into tunneling and ways to avoid it. You are falling into the trap of thinking that because we don't have the technology or understanding now, that we never will. To say that because of our understanding right now we will never achieve something is not correct. I point simply to those that said we would never break the sound barrier. Our knowledge contin
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So at what scale does the background radiation of the Earth damage the device shortly after its produced? Are production CPUs commonly protected from normal radiation exposures now?
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I'm not sure of background radiation, but something like a cell phone sim card can be EM 'bombed' easily enough by wireless modems and the like. Be warned!
Sufficient EM energy will wipe out most electronics. Now if your computer lives in a Faraday cage, it may just survive.
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Yes. At 5E-09 Volkswagens we are indeed close to the limit which is one nano-wagen (nVW).
The limiting factor these days is the ability to form the circuit designer's personal logo out of individual copper atoms, however advances in X-ray lithography may reduce that limit.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_radius [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon [wikipedia.org]
The atomic radius of the smallest solid is carbon at ~65pm. So 22nm = 22000 pm / 65pm = 338X improvement remaining.
As a physical limit, it is hard to see how a computer could be manufactured that used less than one atom per circuit. It is probably not realistic to expect that we will get close to that. In any case, even if we reach single-atom transistors, going beyond that will be a tremendous challenge.
So, at 2 years per halvin
Remember (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Remember (Score:5, Funny)
But IBM put money into linux/oss development (*cheers*) and they fought SCO (*boo's*) who hate so that makes them good... but they also built machines for the nazi's (*boo*) but cuz of the whole nazi thing we have Fanta (*...erm... do we like fanta?*). AMD + ATI = open source graphics drivers (*yay*) but Intel = open source graphics drivers all by themselves (*bigger yay*). IBM, even if they did get shat on during the process, are kinda responsible for putting MS (*smashes bottle and puts broken sharp pieces to its neck*) where it is now.
Erk... I think I'm going to need to have to create some kinda graphical relationship manager for this one, create a love/hate score for everyone involved, in the same way Google create pageranks, and I'll get back to you on whether we do in fact love or hate IBM or not. Stand by...
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yeah right, like I'm gonna be able to type from beyond the grave.
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Ven diagram [dieselsweeties.com] for the win!
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But the Holy Wii uses PowerPC! ...
SLASHBOT SEGFAULT
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In case you're wondering why SRAM... (Score:5, Informative)
New manufacturing processes are typically tested by producing SRAM cells, because they're a relatively typical structure and big arrays of SRAM cells are easily tested to measure the defect rate.
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They're also usually made from _the_ smallest transistors on the die for density reasons. Aside from being able to print these features you also need to reliably set the threshold voltages of all the transistors to make a cell that is both writeable and read-stable. This is not easy to do. For the FET sizes involved in this cell you're probably looking at only tens of dopant atoms setting the Vt. It only takes a few more or a few less dopants to really shift the Vt of said device which could push it int
FFS! (Score:4, Funny)
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Smaller portions yep, but many many more courses :-)
This is amazing! (Score:1, Informative)
IBM says that the cell's development involves.. high-NA immersion lithography, high-K metal gate stacks, extremely thin silicide, damascene copper contacts, and advanced activation techniques."
Wow! That's how my shampoo works too!
I wonder if the SRAM tingles too...?
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Nope, but it's got electrolytes! It's what plants crave!
Lost in translation. (Score:1)
First CUDA ("wonders" in Polish), now SRAM which means "I shit" in Polish.
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Can you conjugate that for us?
You know you need sleep when... (Score:2)
(Insert numerous male enhancement spamvertisements here)
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Oh, I read the headline as: IBM and AMD Create First 22nm _SPAM_ Cell
As if we didn't have enough of it already...
Not bad, but.... (Score:2)
I'm still hanging out for the 8 nm version.