Posted on 09/04/2001 11:32:51 PM PDT by aruanan
Motorola unveiled a microchip that is up to 40 times faster than existing technology yesterday, in a move that the US mobile phones and chip giant hailed as the most important breakthrough in the industry since the 1950s.
The company developed the "revolutionary" semiconductor technology in partnership with the British company IQE, which saw its shares jump 14 per cent yesterday to close at 164.75p. The innovation allows silicon, which is relatively cheap but does not possess good optical qualities, to be married to higher performance compound semiconductors, known as III-V materials, which are expensive but faster and able to receive and emit light. Optical circuits transmit information at the speed of light so yesterday's development will mean much faster, smaller and cheaper chips. These will enable applications such as streaming video to mobile phones.
"What we've fundamentally done is change the whole foundation of the hi-tech industry," said Dennis Roberson, Motorola's chief technology officer.
He said the discovery had the potential to transform the industry in a manner similar in scope to the invention of the first chips when transistors were placed on a single integrated circuit in 1958. These new chips could run at more than 70Ghz, compared with the 2Ghz speed of the best current chips. It has not been possible, until now, to combine silicon with III-V materials – such as gallium arsenide and indium phosphide – as their crystalline structures did not match up and they could not be successfully bonded. Motorola has discovered a substance that can lie between silicon and the III-V material and fuse the two together. Motorola then turned to IQE, which is based in Cardiff, to develop the process.
Putting both materials on a single chip would make it more reliable and connections faster, as it cuts down distances.
Steve Cullen, semiconductor analyst at US consultancy Cahners In-Stat Group, said: "They're on to something big.... The long-term potential for this thing is being able to bring the computing power of silicon and the communications capability of gallium arsenide together."
The technology will be licensed by Motorola to other chip manufacturers, such as Intel. IQE hopes to be involved in the manufacturing process.
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