PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD
PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD MIT researchers have overcome a stumbling block on the way to using carbon nanotubes in computing devices. With their potential for far greater electrical current capacity than copper, carbon nanotubes have long tantalized computer scientists with the promise of ushering in a new wave of chip miniaturization.
“Nanotubes are the ideal replacement for copper. The challenge is in fabrication. No one has been able to grow them effectively and reliably. If the fabrication issue were solved, semiconductor companies would deploy them right away,” said Gilbert Nessim, Ph.D., a post-doctoral researcher at MIT whose work is underwritten by Intel. A carbon nanotube can handle 100 times the electrical current of the tiny vertical copper wires that typically connect different layers inside a microprocessor, according to Nessim.
A major problem in growing carbon nanotubes has been the high temperatures required, perhaps 600-700 degrees Celsius, a heat level that can destroy microprocessors. However, by using a technique in which gases, rather than the microprocessor itself, were heated, Nessim and his team kept the microprocessor temperature at an acceptable level—around 400 C.
A key accomplishment was to use equipment that is standard in semiconductor manufacturing, rather than expensive specialized gear.
“This gives renewed enthusiasm to the feasibility of [carbon nanotubes],” said Nessim.
Although Nessim said the problem is not yet fully solved, his work could point the way to a solution. The next step for Nessim and his team is to study the use of different materials for the different semiconductor layers and to continue the study of gases in growing carbon nanotubes.
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