News Briefs

IBM researchers have developed a technique that creates vacuum spaces, called airgaps, between the wires in processors using self-assembling technology. These airgaps create a form of insulation that increases the chips´ performance up to 35 percent or reduces their power consumption up to 15 percent. The airgap technique lowers the chip insulator´s dielectric constant, which describes a material´s ability to transmit charge when a voltage is applied. Because the insulator would transmit less charge, the current introduced to other circuits would drop. Vacuums are very good insulators because they don´t transmit charge well. Using airgaps between wires can lower a chip insulator´s relative dielectric level to a bit below 2.0.