REVVING UP THE PROCESS : AREA CHIP MAKER TESTING METHOD TO SPEED FUNCTIONS.Byline: Deborah Adamson Daily News Staff Writer A Chatsworth maker of computer-chip machines said Monday that it is testing a new technique to make microprocessor chips perform four times as fast as anything else in the market - a process it found serendipitously. Encouraged by the news, investors pushed up the stock price of Plasma & Materials Technologies Inc. by 27 percent Monday to close at 15-1/8. Microprocessor chips are the ``brains'' of a computer. They execute tasks such as running programs and calculating figures. Analysts believe that if this technique proves to be reliable and practical for mass production, it would revolutionize the computer chip industry. ``It is a very important discovery,'' said Ted O'Neill Theodore A. "Ted" O'Neill is the Dean of Admissions at the University of Chicago and a prominent figure in the college admissions community, as well as a lecturer in the university's Humanities department. , a chip analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co. in Boston. ``A number of companies have tried to do the same thing, but this is the best one we've seen so far.'' Added Tejinder Singh, senior semiconductor analyst at Unterberg Harris in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of : ``It is definitely revolutionary.'' Plasma Chief Executive Greg Campbell
Gregory Dale Campbell (born March 10, 1964, Launceston, Tasmania) is a former Australian cricketer who played in 4 Tests and 12 ODIs from 1989 to 1990. , who started the company in 1986 based on his doctoral thesis on plasma, said the market potential ``for this type of technology is very, very large.'' If Plasma captures 15 percent of the market by 2000, he said, it will add $400 million in revenues - three times its current annual sales. Plasma's technique strengthens the insulation of the metallic wires on a chip, lowering electrical interference and allowing faster performance. When metallic wires of transistors on a chip get too close together, their signals get crossed. That's a problem manufacturers increasingly face as they add more transistors to speed up processing. Chip makers currently use an insulating technique to prevent this electrical crosstalk (1) Electromagnetic interference that comes from an adjacent wire. "Alien" crosstalk is interference that comes from a wire in an adjacent cable, for example, when two or more twisted wire pair cables are bundled together. - growing a solid silicon dioxide silicon dioxide: see silica. (SiO2) A hard, glassy mineral found in such materials as rock, quartz, sand and opal. In MOS chip fabrication, it is used to create the insulation layer between the metal gates of the top layer and the silicon elements below. film or coating on the chip. But the best the market can achieve is a 3.5 to 4.0 ``dielectric constant'' - a measure of insulation effectiveness - said Tony Denboer, an analyst at Integrated Circuit integrated circuit (IC), electronic circuit built on a semiconductor substrate, usually one of single-crystal silicon. The circuit, often called a chip, is packaged in a hermetically sealed case or a nonhermetic plastic capsule, with leads extending from it for Engineering, a Scottsdale, Ariz., consulting firm Noun 1. consulting firm - a firm of experts providing professional advice to an organization for a fee consulting company business firm, firm, house - the members of a business organization that owns or operates one or more establishments; "he worked for a . Plasma's method lowers the constant to 2.0. The company uses a technique called ``Flowfill'' - mixing methyl silane silane or silicon hydride Any of a series of inorganic compounds of silicon and hydrogen with covalent bonds and the general chemical formula SinH(2n + 2). gas and liquid hydrogen Liquid hydrogen is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. It is a common liquid rocket fuel for rocket applications. In the aerospace industry, its name is often abbreviated to LH2 or LH2. peroxide to create a liquid coating on a chip. ``Having a low dielectric constant dielectric constant n. See permittivity. is a significant advantage,'' Denboer said. But the Valley company did not develop the process itself. Electrotech, a British maker of chip manufacturing equipment that Plasma purchased in November, actually came up with Flowfill. When the two companies were negotiating the acquisition, Plasma knew about some of the technique's advantages: Flowfill makes it easier to fill small gaps on a chip and creates a flat film for easier and cheaper manufacturing. But the method's other benefit - creating a low dielectric constant - was not disclosed by Electrotech's owners until the sale was finalized. ``They didn't tell us because if we didn't consummate the deal, we would have been competitors,'' Campbell said. Plasma had been developing its own insulation technique, but the best it could do was a dielectric constant between 3.2 and 3.5. Getting Flowfill was like finding an unexpected jewel, Campbell said. ``I was thrilled,'' he said. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: (Color) Greg Campbell's Plasma & Materials Technologies Inc., in Chatsworth, seeks to improve microprocessors. Terri Thuente/Daily News |
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