Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 17:54:00 12/02/99
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On December 02, 1999 at 04:54:52, Tom Kerrigan wrote: >I'm not an expert, but I think metals on chips are already almost ideal. The way >to make a chip faster would be to use substrates that allow channels to form >faster. Superconductors wouldn't help with this. > >Notice that IBM is using a copper interconnect process for G4s. Copper is almost >twice as conductive as aluminum, but they're not getting very high clock speeds. > >Better conductors have lower resistance, which does mean less heat... With superconductors, you can use Josephson Junctions rather than transistors for switching which are faster. I don't know if they have been miniaturized like transistors onto IC's though. I doubt it. I have not heard much about them since I read an article in Scientific American several years ago. Whatever technology is needed to get to 'faster' from here is being worked on by the CPU companies, I am sure. I think shrink along with multiple CPU's on a chip is probably the best way to get a big boost in performance with present technology. If you could get the traces down to .1 micron and put a bunch of CPU's on a single chip, you'd be cooking with GAs [pun intentional].
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