Intel Beaming About Swifter Transistor
Intel researchers say they have a transistor design that could someday enable faster and more power efficient chips. The company’s researchers feel that the combination of a three-dimensional or tri-gate transistor, which combines the use of advanced materials and manufacturing techniques, could be the answer to delivering future chips that are both speedy and energy efficient processors, Intel researchers said in a presentation at the VLSI Symposium on Technology and Circuits, which began on June 12.
The tri-gate design discussed at the conference pairs high-k (high electrical capacitance) gate dielectrics, along with metal gates electrodes and a manufacturing technique called strained silicon offered to cut power consumption. Transistors have a source, a drain and a gate. The channel, linking the source and drain, provides the path for electricity to follow between them. The metal gate electrode, in this case, works to keep electricity inside the channel?the path between the source and drain?while strained silicon, which manipulates the silicon lattice the chip is built upon, speeds up the flow of electrons inside the chip…
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