Moore's Law states that microprocessors would double in complexity every two years. He had predicted this in 1965 and it seems to be true even today. With advancement in computing technology computers have shrunk from huge building size machines to small palmtops that fit snuggly in our pockets. But shrinking computers and making them faster becomes difficult as we go ahead. We have now almost reached the physical limits beyond which it is just not possible to shrink computers.
Does this means that this the end to speeding of computers? Are we going to be tied down to what we have now? No, not yet. AMD and IBM have challenged the physical limits and have come up with truly amazing innovation. The duo has now discovered a transistor manufacturing technology which can boost the computer speed by 24% without taxing the power source. Their innovation is based on the Dual Stress Liner technology that strains silicon to make highly efficient transistors.
Silicon is the basic ingredient of any computer chip. Silicon itself is a bad conductor of electricity. However, it can be made to conduct electricity by adding certain impurities like germanium. This is called doping. The doped silicon conducts electricity in low amounts and hence it is called “semiconductor”. Semiconductors are of two types; P type and of N type. The two types of semiconductors are then combined with each other to make transistors and logic gates. These in turn are further connected to each other to make a microprocessor chip. Anything that improves performance of the embedded transistors in a chip would improve the performance of the microprocessor chip and ultimately of the computer.
This is exactly what AMD and IBM have achieved. Their Dual Stress Liner technology actually enhances the performance of both P channel transistor and N channel transistor. This in turn enhances overall processing efficiency of the computer.
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Semiconductor Breakthrough: Processor 24 per cent faster
