Developments in processor insulation technology promise savings in storage costs, says James Brown

James Brown, Computing 04 May 2006

An international research team from University College London's (UCL) Centre for Nanotechnology has developed a ceramic material that could result in fundamental changes to technology.

The material can be used in the creation of self-assembled circuit boards with various layers being insulated from each other by just a few atoms dramatically reducing processor size requirements.

Professor Gabriel Aeppli, the director of the London Centre of Nanotechnology, says the technology has the potential to create three-dimensional memory in very small spaces.

'By integrating circuits in the third dimension you can compact a whole rack of circuit boards, something that would normally take up centimetres of space, into sub-micron distances,' he said.

Aeppli believes the ceramic circuits could significantly increase the power of random access memory (Ram) chips over the next five to 10 years.
'We will be dealing with far greater densities of stored data, in three-dimensions rather than two. In those terms, we are talking about an increase in many orders of magnitude,' he said.

Aeppli's ultimate vision for the technology is the creation of supercomputer-level processing power devices the size of current Pentium 4 processors.

But the technology does present problems such as how the levels of heat generated from a three-dimensional processor might be dissipated.

Aeppli says that with current processing technologies reaching their limits, 3D processing may represent the best chance of a way forward.

'Three-dimensional integration is one of the key routes to keeping Moore's Law [that says technological growth will double every 18 months] going.

'Current two-dimensional processor technology is going to near its end as future device sizes get closer and closer to inter-atomic distances,' he said.

Quocirca analyst Clive Longbottom says if we continue with current chip technology, processors will become 'hotter than the surface of the sun' in less than five years.
'We are really beginning to struggle with heat and power in business data centres. We just cannot get enough power into them to service the processor requirements and the parallel need for cooling,' he said.

'The amount of money we are spending on air conditioning is starting to exceed the amounts spent on the computer itself. If we can get control of heat and power then we can look at expanding compute power.'

3D storage capacity could also dramatically reduce the space needed in server rooms for hard-disks, says Longbottom.

'You could look at seriously reducing the amount of real estate required. Tens of terabytes of storage needs a large area of space. If you looked to do that with nanotechnology you could make vast reductions,' he said.

'It just has to get through the bleeding-edge phase and prove itself to be cost effective.'

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