IBM Supercomputing Simulations Support Chip Breakthrough

IBM Supercomputing Simulations Support Chip Breakthrough

IBM (NYSE: IBM) researchers today announced an advancement in computer-based simulations that is helping to drive chip technologies to new heights of performance and function. As reported in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters, a team of scientists at IBM’s Zurich Research Laboratory for the first time used advanced supercomputer-based models to more deeply understand and master the complex behavior of a promising new material — hafnium dioxide — in silicon transistors, the fundamental building blocks of computer chips.

The new material is key to the company’s recently-announced “high-k metal gate” technology, the first major change to the transistor since the emergence of silicon semiconductors, promising enhanced chip performance to benefit computers and other electronic systems. IBM is implementing the technology and will apply it to products in 2008.

The semiconductor industry has long sought to find a new material for a crucial part of the transistor known as the gate dielectric, which, with the materials used currently, is limiting the industry’s ability to keep pace with the progress predicted by Moore’s Law — a maxim predicting a doubling of the number of transistors on a chip, and an associated increase in chip performance, every 12-18 months.

While hafnium dioxide appeared to be an ideal candidate for next-generation transistor gates, the introduction of any new material in semiconductors can have unforeseen consequences, so it must be thoroughly understood beforehand. One critical factor contributing to IBM’s success in the highly complex and difficult task of integrating these new materials has been simulation of the interaction of this material at the atomic level.

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