Super-fast Transistors On the Way

nbannerman writes "The BBC is reporting about a new kind of transistor, that recently set a world record of 110Ghz. From the article: 'To achieve the speed gain, researchers at the University of Southampton added fluorine to the silicon devices. The technique uses existing silicon manufacturing technology meaning it should be quick and easy to deploy.' The apparent applications for this process include mobile phones and digital cameras."

Power Consumption

[grahamsz]

Remember that when a CMOS gate is switching the current flowing through it increases. The faster the gate is able to switch, the less power will be used in the state change. Now the processor doesn't have to run at anywhere near that speed, but the fast transistor switch will minimize the power per cycle.

Purpose?

[treak007]

Why would the prime purpose of this be cameras and cell phones, rather then computers.

OMG that would be hard to use.

[Anonymous Coward]

At 100 GHz the wavelength is 3 cm. A quarter wave line would be 0.75 cm. This thing is operating at a frequency well above that at which it is easy/feasible to use a printed circuit board. To operate at this frequency I would have to spend a whole pile of money so I could use hybrid IC techniques. Or I could figure out how to couple this device to waveguide. AARGH!

The magic word Slashdot asks me to type to prove that I'm not a robot is 'hospital'. How very appropriate 'cause that's where I would end up if I tried to use this sucker.

Re:Mobile Phones?

[modecx]

I'm sorry? Using "ultra-high frequency communications" would serve no purpose as an application to cell communication, unless you cherish the idea of cell companies needing to put a tower every few hundred yards, having your phone put out enough radiation to cook your brains, having your signal blocked by a little bit of rain, and not being able to use your phone whilst inside buildings with walls thicker than cellophane.

Cellphones use the frequencies they use not because it's the best that technology can do, they use those frequencies because it's the most practical way to do it.

Re:Yikes! Flourine is nasty stuff

[budgenator]

Yeah right, boy that sounds like one for mythbusters right after they do the 15Kt bic lighter/welder spark episode. Exposure to large amount of fluorine gas is a bad thing and probably fatal, but that's mostly do the extreme oxidising potential of fluorine and poisoning multiple emzymes rather than decalcification in fact fluorine is added to teeth to recalcify them and to turn some of the calcium hypatite into calcium flourite to increase the teeth's decay resistance, literally turning some of the tooth into the rock fluorite.

Re:Faster?

[Fordiman]

Programmer: There is no speed issue that cannot be solved through the use of better hardware.
Engineer: There is no hardware issue that cannot be solved through the use of well-written software.

Discuss.

Meanwhile, they have this notion that an improvement in transistor speed is an advance specifically for mobile peripherals. What about shattering moore's law? Have these guys not considered that, you know, maybe, your computer's circuitry is made up almost entirely out of transistors and capacitors?

Honestly, this means faster anything used for logic. Fuck yo' beowulf clusta; a single computer built of these would operate at ungodly speeds.

You know, if Intel decides to license the tech. Still, it would be a small change in their existing manufacturing process if they include it, little extra cost in chip manufacturing, and they'll probably be able to charge a mint a piece for 11GHz cores.

Re:MOSFET Application

[davros-too]

Definitely not modded insightful by someone who understands. There's no engineer designing MOSFETs who is going to slap his or her forehead and say 'why didn't I think of that?'. CMOS design/fabrication is incredibly complex and doping profiles are optimised using multiple techniques. Silicon bipolar transistors are large and unsophisticated in comparison to the CMOS devices in your computer. I'm not saying these researchers aren't doing good work - but their techniques are not directly applicable to chip manufacture.

Re:Where does that expression come from, anyway?

[Anarchitect_in_oz]

The "triangle of Expectation" has been used in the construction industry for a long time as well.
often the sides are labeled Time, Cost and Quality, but the idea is still the same. I've even seen builders put the diagram in tender submissions.

Some management guru has even gone on to say that for any given project the area of the triangle is always the same. so that the most effective project will be an equal angle triangle.
The management guy was from the 70's so the idea has to be at least a 100years older than that. ;-)

It is strange that is such a common thing yet it doesn't google an orgin.