Toshiba Corp has developed a new process that pushes the limits of how much smaller silicon-based chips can be made. The Japanese company says it has developed technology to etch circuits of 20- 30 nanometers wide on silicon wafers, which it says is 10 to 100 times finer than current chip densities. The technology could be used for commercial fabrication of chips as early as 2005-2008, Toshiba officials told the Japanese media.
The circuits fine enable control of data at the single-electron level, and the technology is applicable to existing chipmaking plants, according to the officials who said that Toshiba has used the new technology to test-produce chips that function as single-electron devices allowing exceptional data throughput.
Local analysts were quoted by the company as saying the technology represents a breakthrough that pushes the physical limits of chip miniaturization. It was developed as part of a research project commissioned by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, an affiliate of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.
The announcement shows how close we are to reaching the most fundamental limit to the performance of electronic systems. An electric current requires at least one electron. Toshiba is showing us how to make silicon circuits that need only one electron to operate, said Peter Glaskowsky, at the Microprocessor Report.
