New method makes low power high performance processors

10 March 2004 News News & Events Security Services & Risk Management

Powered by 58 million transistors, IBM's new award-winning 64-bit PowerPC 970FX microprocessor will be the first chip built using the company's breakthrough combination of silicon-on-insulator (SOI), strained silicon and copper wiring technologies. IBM will put the technique to work in 90 nm volume production at its 300 mm manufacturing facility. Integrating strained silicon and SOI into the same manufacturing process speeds the flow of electrons through transistors. This increases performance and provides an insulating layer in the silicon that isolates transistors to decrease power consumption. The PowerPC 970FX will be the first chip built using this trio of technology breakthroughs. Early chips produced with the technology were shown to deliver significant power savings, while performing at an equal or higher clock speed than comparable processors, according to IBM. The company expects to realise even greater gains in processor efficiency as it ramps production of the new process technology.

www.research.ibm.com

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