From: "Rich Gauszka" 

I wonder if this will help AMD in their battle with Intel?

'IBM will also "selectively license" the technology to partners,
Kelly said.
IBM has research efforts with No. 2 computer processor maker Advanced Micro
Devices Inc.'

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070503/tc_nm/ibm_chip_dc_1

 SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - IBM has developed a way to make microchips run up
to one-third faster or use 15 percent less power by using an exotic
material that "self-assembles" in a similar way to a seashell or
snowflake.

The computer services and technology company said the new process allows
the wiring on a chip to be insulated with vacuum, replacing the glass-like
substances used for decades but which have become less effective as chips
steadily shrink.

It is the latest achievement for IBM researchers, who have announced a
number of advances in recent months allowing chips to get smaller despite
challenges posed by physical laws at those tiny dimensions.

"This is one of the biggest breakthroughs I've seen in the last
decade," said John Kelly, International Business Machines Corp.'s
(NYSE:IBM - news) senior vice president of technology and intellectual
property.

"The holy grail of insulators is to use vacuum ... and we've broken
the code on how to do this," Kelly said.

The technique works by coating a silicon wafer with a layer of a special
polymer that when baked, naturally forms trillions of uniformly tiny holes
just 20 nanometers, or millionth of a millimeter, across.

The resulting pattern is used to create the copper wiring on top of a chip
and the insulating gaps that let electricity flow smoothly. A similar
process is seen in nature during the formation of snowflakes, tooth enamel
and seashells, IBM said.

"The problem they needed to solve was how to create lots of deep
little wells in the insulation area between the wires," said Nathan
Brookwood, who runs Insight 64, an industry consultancy.

"Typically, whenever they tried, they ended up making a chip that was
like Swiss cheese and had no mechanical integrity," Brookwood said

BM will also "selectively license" the technology to partners,
Kelly said. IBM has research efforts with No. 2 computer processor maker
Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Japan's Toshiba Corp. (6502.T), and others.

Last month, IBM said it had found a way to stack the components of a chip
on top of each other, making them faster and more energy efficient by
cutting the distance an electrical signal needs to travel.

In January, the company said it had solved a long-standing obstacle in
drastically cutting electricity leakage in chips. That announcement -- made
alongside a similar but separate one by Intel Corp.  was hailed as the
biggest advances in transistor technology in four decades.

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