How a Stanford wiring breakthrough could transform chip technology

[Daniel Puchert]

Wiring breakthrough could transform chip technology

The rapid technological advancements of our world have been enabled by our capacity to design and fabricate ever smaller electronic chips. These underpin computers, mobile phones and every smart device deployed to date.

One of the many challenges is that electronic components generate increasingly more heat as they are miniaturised.

 

[Brian_G]

Here's the meat of what's an interesting article.

A group at Stanford University has published a new paper showing that thin films of a material known as niobium phosphide (NbP) exhibit much higher conductivity than copper below a thickness of 5 nanometres (nm) (the typical thickness of the wiring in today’s chips is about 10nm-30nm).

This improvement is because NbP is a material with unique quantum properties.

 

[saor]

All this talk of meat & chips. When's lunch!?