KYOTO, Japan — Intel Corp. researchers have provided a peek at a transistor with a gate length measuring just 20 nanometers, which Intel expects to put into production in 2007 when its microprocessors ...

Fifty years ago this month, Intel introduced the first commercial microprocessor, the 4004. Microprocessors are tiny, general-purpose chips that use integrated circuits made up of transistors to ...

Silicon chip manufacturers like Intel and TSMC are constantly outdoing themselves to make ever smaller features, but they are getting closer to the physical limits of silicon. “We already have very, ...

Silicon is the second most abundant element in Earth’s crust, but is rarely found in pure form. High-purity quartzite (SiO 2) is reduced in an electric arc furnace at around 1,800 °C using carbon ...

Researchers at IBM have come up with a new approach to building transistors that could lead to faster, more energy efficient chips in a few years. Big Blue has managed to combine both strained silicon ...

Integrating 2D materials into conventional semiconductor manufacturing processes may be one of the more radical changes in the chip industry’s history. While there is pain and suffering associated ...

Metrology and wafer inspection processes are changing to keep up with evolving and new device applications. While fab floors still have plenty of OCD tools, ellipsometers, and CD-SEMs, new systems are ...

In this Eye on Patents column, we graphically explore the intellectual property created in support of computer chips and ...

IBM claims to have developed the world’s smallest working silicon transistor. At 6 nanometers in length (a nanometer, nm, is one-billionth of a meter), the new transistor is at least 10 times smaller ...

Researchers at Big Blue manage to combine strained silicon and a silicon insulator in the same wafer, a new approach that could lead to faster, more efficient chips in a few years. Michael Kanellos is ...