Semiconductor Researchers Trying to Chip Away at Goal

By Tim Simmons

RALEIGH, N.C. – Few people outside the world of semiconductor research know about the work of Veena Misra or Ki Wook Kim at North Carolina State University.

But the two engineers are certain everyone will know if they and their colleagues fail: The march of technological progress as we know it will cease.

They are sure of this. Moore’s Law – named after Intel co- founder Gordon Moore – has predicted it.

“Our whole standard of living will stop evolving,” said Dinesh Mehta, vice president of Semiconductor Research Corp. in Durham, N.C. “Our quality of life will stop evolving.”

The Semiconductor Research Corp., or SRC as it’s known in the industry, is the world’s leading university-research consortium for semiconductors. It has invested $1.1 billion in research since it was founded in 1982.

The work of Misra and Kim is part of the newest round of grants totaling $11.2 million spread among three dozen universities.

The goal is to develop a radically new chip when today’s semiconductors reach their technological limits. That is expected to happen in about 12 years.

“We have reached a point where people take it for granted, that technology will always improve,” said Larry Sumney, president of SRC. “That should never happen.”

In its simplest form, semiconductors are a series of transistors placed on a silicon-based chip; think of companies in Silicon Valley.

But that simplicity vanishes at today’s standards, where 2.1 billion transistors are placed on a square wafer that is about half an inch across.

Shrinking transistors to a size measured in nanometers is the result of Moore’s Law – an industry standard that dictates that the number of transistors on a chip should double every two years.

Meeting the standard has allowed remarkable progress in the technology that propels everything from medical equipment to airline travel.

But it might be easier for most consumers to think in terms of televisions, cameras, computers and appliances, said Henry Becker, president of Qimonda North America, a global supplier of digital memory based in Cary, N.C.

“If you walked in Circuit City or Best Buy and could make everything disappear that uses a chip, the shelves would be practically empty,” Becker said. “It is that much a part of our lives.”

But the expectation that your next computer will be more powerful than the last one, or today’s technology will be cheaper tomorrow, only holds true if the industry meets Moore’s Law.

And the current structure has its limits.

“The transistors are already so small you can’t see them,” Sumney said. “Eventually we will reach the point where they won’t work because there is only room to move one electron, which is not reliable. You will need a different way to move information.”

Originally published by The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC).

(c) 2008 Telegraph – Herald (Dubuque). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.