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Subject: Scientists invent insulator to replace the silicon chip

Author:
Betty

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Date Posted: 01:17:09 09/06/05 Tue

A team of South Korean scientists said on Friday that they had developed a new technology that could open the way to make new devices that could replace current silicon-based semiconductors.

The team led by Kim Hyun-Tak of the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) said they had successfully manufactured what is known as a "Mott insulator."

Named after Nevill Mott, a British scientist who won the 1977 Nobel Physics Prize, Mott insulators, although metal-based, do not normally conduct electrical charges.

Subjected to a high-voltage shock, however, Mott insulators can conduct electricity at relatively low temperatures of 67�C.

"Silicon generates heat, making it impossible to place ultra-thin circuits on chips but Mott metals do not generate heat while carrying out the same job of semiconductors," ETRI President Lim Joo-Hwan said.

"Semiconductors of the 20th century will eventually give way to Mott insulators," Kim Hyun-Tak told journalists.

He said Mott insulators could open a new market worth $100-billion per year globally, including displays and new devices that would not use silicon-based semiconductors.

By making use of such Mott metal insulators, chips with five-nanometer circuits would be possible, he said. Existing semiconductor chips can theoretically carry 40-nanometer circuits but leading edge products on the market currently run at around 90-nanometers. One nanometer is one billionth of a metre.

Samsung Electronics, the worlds top memory chipmaker, stunned the world last year by unveiling the most advanced flash memory chips based on 60-nanometer circuits.

Experts said this level probably represents the technical limit for miniaturising circuits with silicon-based semiconductor chips.

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