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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