Stacks of chips, one on top of the other, will power the next generation of superfast PCs, IBM has announced. Laying chips vertically, instead of side by side, reduces the distance data has to travel by 1,000 times, making the chips faster and more efficient. Big blue has said that it will start producing the compact silicon sandwiches in 2008. Chip manufacturer Intel has previously announced that it is also developing similar vertical chip technology. Last year, the firm unveiled a chip with 80 processing cores and capable of more than a trillion calculations per second (teraflops) that used vertical stacking technology. Other firms, such as Tru-Si, have also developed techniques for creating 3D stacked chips. High rise Today most chips are laid out side-by-side, connected by wires. The new technique involves placing chips directly on top of each other, connected by tungsten filled pipes, etched through the silicon. These "through-silicon vias" (TSV), as they are...
Comments