Intel TeraHertz was
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
's new design for
transistor
upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink).
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...
s. It uses new materials such as
zirconium dioxide
Zirconium dioxide (), sometimes known as zirconia (not to be confused with zircon), is a white crystalline oxide of zirconium. Its most naturally occurring form, with a monoclinic crystalline structure, is the mineral baddeleyite. A dopant stabi ...
which is a superior insulator reducing current leakages. Using zirconium dioxide instead of silicon dioxide, this transistor can reduce the current leakage, and thus reduces power consumption while still working at higher speed and using lower voltages.
One element of this structure is a "depleted substrate transistor," which is a type of CMOS device where the transistor is built in an ultra-thin layer of silicon on top of an embedded layer of insulation. This ultra-thin silicon layer is fully depleted to maximize drive current when the transistor is turned on, allowing the transistor to switch on and off faster.
In contrast, when the transistor is turned off, unwanted current leakage is minimized by the thin insulating layer. This allows the depleted substrate transistor to have 100 times less leakage than traditional silicon-on-insulator schemes. Another innovation of Intel's depleted substrate transistor is the use of low resistance contacts on top of the silicon layer. The transistor can therefore be very small, very fast and consume less power.
Another important element is the development of a new material that replaces silicon dioxide on the wafer. All transistors have a "gate-dielectric," a material that separates a transistor's "gate" from its active region (the gate controls the on-off state of the transistor).
According to Intel, the new design could use only 0.6
volt
The volt (symbol: V) is the unit of electric potential, electric potential difference (voltage), and electromotive force in the International System of Units (SI). It is named after the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta (1745–1827).
Defi ...
s. Intel TeraHertz was unveiled in 2001. , it is not used in processors.
See also
*
Silicon on insulator
In semiconductor manufacturing, silicon on insulator (SOI) technology is fabrication of silicon semiconductor devices in a layered silicon–insulator–silicon substrate, to reduce parasitic capacitance within the device, thereby improving perfo ...
External links
Intel terahertz transistor breaks speed limits(Nov 200
Intel Announces Breakthrough In Chip Transistor Design
(May 200
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TeraHertz
Intel microprocessors