Faster PowerPC Chips?

IBM's copper circuitry may yield smaller, cheaper chips that use less power

By Tom Davey

BM last week announced a chipmaking process that may result in faster processors for everything from servers to handheld devices. IBM plans to first use the process-which involves using copper circuitry in semiconductors instead of the traditional aluminum-in PowerPC chips destined for high-end servers early next year. But other chipmakers, including Intel, say they'll be much slower to move to similar new manufacturing processes.

IBM has discovered how to use copper for the circuitry on silicon wafers, which lets it produce smaller, cheaper chips that use less power, the company says. The reason is that copper conducts electricity better than aluminum, the metal currently used for circuits in all chip-making.

A Step Ahead
IBM predicts performance gains of up to 40% from the new technology, which it says will let it make chips with circuits of 0.20-micron thickness-1/500th the thickness of a human hair. That would put it a step ahead of Intel, which currently builds the smallest circuits among chip manufacturers and recently moved from 0.35- to 0.25-micron technology.

IBM says its copper process can be used to manufacture all types of chips, including microprocessors, memory, and so-called application-specific circuitry that is used in products ranging from cellular phones to antilock brakes. First up will be a new PowerPC chip using the copper process, dubbed CMOS 7S, which IBM expects to deliver in the first half of next year. That chip will initially be used in high-end servers, says an IBM spokesman. IBM's RS/6000 and AS/400 servers use the P owerPC. The other major computer maker that uses the PowerPC is Apple Computer.

IBM also estimates the technology will reduce the manufacturing cost of chips by 20% to 30%. But because the cost of the chip is only a relatively small portion of the cost of a computer, that won't make much difference to the overall cost of systems.

Intel's Move
Intel may eventually move to copper or other higher-conducting metals such as silver in its chips, CEO Andy Grove said at a Gartner Group conference last week in San Francisco. He said the chipmaker has been exploring the use of higher-conducting metals for some time. "Over time, I think this will have an impact on the industry," he said. But in the near term, Intel is exploiting other means of shrinking chips. "We don't think it is going to be part of our 0.18-micron technology," he said, regarding Intel's next generation of manufacturing that's slated to begin in 1999. "We are looking at the 0.13-micron generation."

Ron Dornseif, a principal an alyst at Dataquest Inc., downplays the importance of the IBM announcement. "It is insignificant to the marketplace," though the technology trend is important, he says. "This allows us to stay on Moore's law," he adds. Moore's law, a maxim devised in 1965 by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, says that the performance of chips doubles every 18 months.

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