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IEDM preview: Looks like another propeller-head extravaganza |
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Dec 07, 2006 at 10:30 AM |
The propeller-headed minions of semiconductor and nanoelectronics technology descend on San Francisco next week for the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM).
A perusal of the conference agenda reveals the usual panopoly of cutting-edge research and development papers, with a handful thrown in from the manufacturing ranks for good measure, as well as brainteasing plenary and lunch talks.
Rather than offer a laundry list of sessions and paper titles, I've uploaded some images and descriptive blurbs from a few presentations.
The image above shows a cross-section of a ten-level interconnect stack created with a BEOL process developed by the IBM-AMD-Sony-Toshiba alliance. The authors' paper, part of IEDM Session 13, describes how the technology is "the first successful implementation of copper and ultra-low-k dielectric material (a porous SiCOH cocktail with k value of 2.4) to meet reliability qualification criteria." They claim they can CMP the dielectric, which has hitherto been very difficult to do.
The SEM photo above reveals a cross-section of an embedded DRAM cell developed by a team at Big Blue. Part of a 65-nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) processor, the 2-Mb eDRAM has a 0.127-square-micron memory with 1.5-nanosecond access times, said to be the fastest result ever for such a cache. The embedded device is highly scalable and won't compromise the neighboring logic elements, according to the authors who will present their findings in Session 21.
This SEM shot of an intriguing microgizmo offers details of a postprocessed die and giant magnetoresistive (GMR) biosensor array used for DNA analysis. Built by scientists at Stanford University, the biochip features more than a thousand sensing elements within a square millimeter and was integrated with quarter-micron BiCMOS chip circuitry. Possible future applications include low-cost, portable medical diagnostic instruments. The work will be presented in Session 28.
Look for my IEDM reports and musings direct from San Francisco next week on Chip Shots.
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