COPPER CONDUCTS COMPUTERS

Smaller, faster and cheaper.

These words could be the slogan for a new car, but they are also the three driving forces behind computer chip technology. If there is something that makes one chip better than another, it is always size, speed, or lower cost. 

What does chemistry have to do with micro electronics? Every computer chip in the world is designed using a photolithographic process and includes complex layers of tungsten connectors and silicon interconnected with polysilicon films. Without chemical knowledge, we would not have computers at all! The original chips were designed using chemical processes, including oxidation, photolithography, etching and implantation. Chemical technicians are constantly working towards developing newer and better chips.

Today, the new hero of chip technology is a famous old conductor that is highly efficient and not too expensive...copper. Traditionally, aluminum wiring, which is cheap, plentiful, and also pliable, has been used in computer chips to transmit information. But in 1997, IBM announced a breakthrough in their research that made the use of copper transistors possible. 

Copper is a better conductor than aluminum, which means that electrons can pass through it at a greater speed, making the chip work FASTER. Copper wires pass electronic information with close to 40 percent less resistance than aluminum. This means that copper microprocessors conduct electricity up to 15 percent faster than aluminum. Talk about cutting down your download time! This higher efficiency level means that not as many chips are needed to do the same amount of work. Also, thinner pieces of copper wiring can be used than the more cumbersome aluminum wiring, as copper is not as delicate and will not break as easily. Aluminum wires are more breakable due to electromigration, or voids made when individual electrons move erratically due to high currents. 

Aluminum wires are about 0.35 microns thick and copper wires are about 0.20 microns thick. To put that in more familiar terms, one micron is over 100 times thinner than a human hair! Since up to a quarter mile of wiring is used on a single computer chip, the thinner wires and lower number of chips can help manufacturers make SMALLER chips and SMALLER computers. 

All this, and CHEAPER too! The new copper chips are 10-15 per cent cheaper to make than the old ones. It makes you wonder why nobody thought of copper before! Actually, they did think of it before. Researchers have been working steadily since the late 1960s on developing a practical and manufacturable copper chip. 

All that work with such minuscule results!

GIVING YOUR DIGITAL TV A BRAIN 
There are many sectors of computer companies that will be taking advantage of the better conductive power of copper. One place computer companies are planning on developing is a place where you have never had a functional computer before...your television. 

Zarlink (formerly known as Mitel) is teaming up with IBM to create integrated digital television sets, or iDTVs. Small chips inserted into a "set-top box" mechanism in your television will, in effect, give your TV a brain. 

The set-top box in a digital television contains a tuner and a demodulator. A tuner receives a signal and a demodulator decodes it and changes it into a picture. Until recently, each component had its own chip. With new technology, the tuner, demodulator, and proposed interactive elements in the digital TVs will share a single chip.

"Less space makes new technology possible," says Michael Salter, Communications Manager at Ottawa's Zarlink. "And you will always get a better signal with less devices." 

Some features of the new TVs will be digital text, Internet access, e-commerce capabilities, incorporation of personal video recorders, and digital versatile disks.

In contrast, Mr. Salter says that one factor alone will bring iDTV technology into North America.

 "Acceptance of digital TV depends on bringing down the cost," he says.

Again, it seems that smaller, faster and cheaper is the order of the day.