ARN

3D chips: The next electronics revolution

New chip-design technology promises higher performance and lower power consumption

To accomplish anything in the suburbs, you need to get in your car and drive to another address. Downtown, in a skyscraper, you just use an elevator.

Elevators are more efficient -- and the semiconductor industry has taken notice (metaphorically speaking) with a trend toward 3D chip design. Instead of putting dies in separate packages, soldered to a circuit board and sending data through their I/O ports to other chips (i.e., driving through the suburbs), dies are stacked and data is moved from one layer to the next (i.e., via the elevator).

Chip industry insiders, such as Brian Cronquist, vice president at Monolithic 3D Inc., a 3D chip technology startup in San Jose, say that a 3D design using two stacked dies with 22-nanometer geometry would produce much the same result -- including reduced wire length, gate size and device power consumption -- as moving to one die with 15nm geometry. (According to Intel , a 22nm transistor's gates are so small that over 4,000 of them could fit across the width of a single human hair.)

To continue reading, register here to become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

Nominations for the 2012 ARN IT Industry Awards open on Tuesday, June 12.

More about: etwork, Inc., Intel
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the ARN comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: Components, Emerging Technologies, freemium, hardware, hardware systems, Intel, processors
ARN Directory | Distributors relevant to this article
Aquion , ASI Solutions , Compucon Computers , Impact Systems Technology , Leader Computers , Synnex Australia , Topstar Computer International , Xpress I.T.
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to ARN's news, research and invitation only events.
ARN Distributor Directory
Find distributors by name | vendor | location
Channel Deals
/deals/avg/2009-09-18_71_become-an-avg-reseller
AVG (AU/NZ) Pty Ltd

Become an AVG Reseller and Make Serious Money!

More details »
ARN Vendor Directory
Find vendors by name | category

iAsset is a channel management ecosystem that automates all major aspects of the entire sales,marketing and service process, including data tracking, integrated learning, knowledge management and product lifecycle management.