|
Topic Name: Researchers developed a new process that lead to a significant reduction in heat generated by silicon chips or microprocessors
Category: Bioelectronics
Research persons: Prof. Rajendra Singh
Location: Clemson University, United States
Details
The next generation of laptops, desk computers, cell phones and other
semiconductor devices may get faster and more cost-effective with research from Clemson
University.
"We’ve developed a new process and equipment that will lead to a
significant reduction in heat generated by silicon chips or microprocessors
while speeding up the rate at which information is sent,” says Rajendra Singh,
D. Houser Banks Professor and director for the Center for Silicon
Nanoelectronics at Clemson University.
The heart of many high-tech devices is the microprocessor that performs the
logic functions. These devices produce heat depending on the speed at which the
microprocessor operates. Higher speed microprocessors generate more heat than
lower speed ones. Presently, dual-core or quad-core microprocessors are packaged
as a single product in laptops so that heat is reduced without compromising
overall speed of the computing system. The problem, according to Singh, is
that writing software for these multicore processors, along with making them
profitable, remains a challenge.
“Our new process and equipment improve the performance of the materials
produced, resulting in less power lost through leakage. Based on our work,
microprocessors can operate faster and cooler. In the future it will be possible
to use a smaller number of microprocessors in a single chip since we’ve
increased the speed of the individual microprocessors. At the same time, we’ve
reduced power loss six-fold to a level never seen before. Heat loss and,
therefore, lost power has been a major obstacle in the past,” said Singh.
Participants in the research included Aarthi Venkateshan, Kelvin F. Poole,
James Harriss, Herman Senter, Robert Teague of Clemson and J. Narayan of North
Carolina State University at Raleigh. Results were published in Electronics
Letters, Oct. 11, 2007, Volume: 43, Issue: 21, 1130-1131. The work
reported here is covered by a broad-base patent of Singh and Poole issued to
Clemson University in 2003.
The researchers say the patented technique has the potential to improve the
performance and lower the cost of next-generation computer chips and a number of
semiconductor devices, which include green energy conversion devices such as
solar cells.
“The potential of this new process and equipment is the low cost of
manufacturing, along with better performance, reliability and yield,” Singh
said. “The semiconductor industry is currently debating whether to change from
smaller (300 mm wafer) manufacturing tools to larger ones that provide
more chips (450 mm). Cost is the barrier to change right now. This invention
potentially will enable a reduction of many processing steps and will result in
a reduction in overall costs.”
South Carolina has a growing semiconductor related industry, and the
developers of this new process and equipment say it provides the potential for
creating new jobs in the allied semiconductor equipment manufacturing industry.
Note for Multicore processor
A multi-core CPU (or chip-level multiprocessor, CMP) combines two or more independent cores into a single package composed of a single integrated circuit (IC), called a die, or more dies packaged together. A dual-core processor contains two cores and a quad-core processor contains four cores. A multi-core microprocessor implements multiprocessing in a single physical package. A processor with all cores on a single die is called a monolithic processor. Cores in a multicore device may share a single coherent cache at the highest on-device cache level (e.g. L2 for the Intel Core 2) or may have separate caches (e.g. current AMD dual-core processors). The processors also share the same interconnect to the rest of the system. Each "core" independently implements optimizations such as superscalar execution, pipelining, and multithreading. A system with N cores is effective when it is presented with N or more threads concurrently. The most commercially significant (or at least the most 'obvious') multi-core processors are those used in computers (primarily from Intel & AMD) and game consoles (e.g., the Cell processor in the PS3). In this context, "multi" typically means a relatively small number of cores. However, the technology is widely used in other technology areas, especially those of embedded processors, such as network processors and digital signal processors, and in GPUs.
Note for Nanoelectronics
Nanoelectronics refer to the use of nanotechnology on electronic components, especially transistors. Although the term nanotechnology is generally defined as utilizing technology less than 100nm in size, nanoelectronics often refer to transistor devices that are so small that inter-atomic interactions and quantum mechanical properties need to be studied extensively. As a result, present transistors (such as CMOS90 from TSMC or Pentium 4 Processors from Intel) do not fall under this category, even though these devices are manufactured under 90nm or 65nm technology.
Nanoelectronics are sometimes considered as disruptive technology because present candidates are significantly different from traditional transistors. Some of these candidates include: hybrid molecular/semiconductor electronics, one dimensional nanotubes/nanowires, or advanced molecular electronics. The sub-voltage and deep-sub-voltage nanoelectronics are specific and important fields of R&D, and the appearance of new ICs operating near theoretical limit on energy consumption per 1 bit processing is inevitably.
About Researcher
Prof. Rajendra Singh
D. Houser Banks Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Office: 206 Riggs Hall
Phone: (864) 656-0919 Fax: (864) 656-5910
rajendra.singh@ces.clemson.edu
Rajendra Singh received the B.Sc. degree from Agra University, Agra, India, in 1965, the M.Sc. degree in physics (electronics as the special subject) from Meerut University, India, in 1968, and the Ph.D degree in physics (thesis on solar cells) from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont., Canada, in 1979.
|
