Chicago Sun-Times
Professor, students set transistor speed mark
January 30, 2003
BY HOWARD WOLINSKY Business Reporter
Buckle your seat belts and hang onto your keyboards, computing fans.
University of Illinois researchers have set a new computing speed
record by building the world's fastest transistor, taking a quantum
leap forward for electronic combat systems and potentially a
revolution in consumer electronics and communications products, such
as video phones and collision-warning systems for cars.
The super-transistors could breed new types of consumer products the
likes of which haven't been seen before, such as universal devices
capable of being used to tune into any type of signal, from radio and
TV to cellular phone calls.
Milton Feng, a University of Illinois electrical and computer
engineering professor in Urbana, and his grad students built a
transistor clocked this month at 382 gigahertz, shooting past the
350-GHz transistor developed by IBM and the 341-GHz transistor made by
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone in Japan. They have submitted their
findings to a scientific journal.
Feng is anticipating he will smoke rivals at IBM, NTT and Hitachi. "We
expect to break 500 gigahertz in April, and I predict it is more than
likely we will reach 700 gigahertz" by spring 2004.
Transistors are devices made up of semiconductor material, most
commonly silicon, that amplify a signal or open or close a circuit.
The speed of transistors is measured in hertz, a unit of frequency in
the number of cycles per second. Speeds in the gigahertz (Ghz) range
equal one billion cycles per second.
Feng said 382-GHz transistors ultimately will yield 38-GHz
microprocessors. That's more than 10 times faster than the fastest
processors built into computers sold today, which are 3-GHz. When Feng
started this research in 1995, the fastest transistors were clocked at
180 gigs.
Circuits with high-speed transistors are expected to be available for
government security agencies in two to three years and for consumer
products in four to five years, Feng said.
Walid "Mac" Hafez, Feng's research assistant, said the U.S. Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is funding the
research, wants faster transistors to build circuits that can convert
analog information, such as radar images and voice communications, on
the fly into digital information for use in "electronic combat
systems." The lower-power, high-speed circuits also could be useful in
missile systems and in boosting security, he said.
Jose Schutt-Aine, a U. of I. electrical engineering professor not
involved in Feng's project, said the research represents a major step
toward "the holy grail of soft radios," devices that eliminate analog
components by using software to tune directly to desired radio
frequencies. This could enable not only faster computers but new types
of communications devices that send and receive images nearly
instantly.
Schutt-Aine said, "You could use your cell phone as your TV. Software
will decide whether it is a TV signal or a cell phone signal or some
other kind of device. We're anticipating a major revolution in
communications by the end of the decade."
Signals, such as analog voice or images, are slowed today by their
conversion in several steps into digital information, making them
vulnerable to interception by an enemy.
"This technology is going to help provide digitization of signals very
quickly," said Feng. "If you have faster transistors, no one can steal
your signal."
The secret is Indium Phosphide, called InP, a compound that carries
electrons faster than any other known material. Thus, Urbana research
moves beyond the Silicon Valley to a new place, the Indium Valley.
Silicon, the basic building block for computer chips since the 1940s,
has been reaching its natural limits. Also, silicon is not considered
a good medium for transmitting high-frequency signals, such as light.
InP, on the other hand, trips the light fantastic, and is expected to
play a major role in fiber-optics, carrying high-speed data, such as
medical diagnostic images, Web pages and documents, on light waves.
Feng's $2.1 million grant from DARPA, the same agency that seeded the
Internet, had set a target of 500 GHz by spring 2004. Now Feng is
shooting for 700 gigs, which he believes may be as fast this
technology will go.
Hafez designed and fabricated the transistor in the university's Micro
and Nanotechnology Laboratory, and another grad student, Jie-Wei Lai,
designed the technique of alternating layers of InP and indium gallium
arsenide. Mike Hattendorf, who received his Ph.D last summer, designed
the fabrication process.
The transistors are 1,000 times thinner than a human hair, and Hafez
explained that the highly efficient, low-power "skinny" transistors
are naturally fast. "The electrons don't have to travel so far," he
said.
He expects basic circuits to be available by this summer.
InP has been researched for the last 25 years. Some wireless equipment
and testing equipment now have InP components.
Copyright 2003, Digital Chicago Inc.
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