IRVINE,
Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 9, 2005--UC Irvine
scientists in The Henry Samueli School of Engineering
have demonstrated for the first time that carbon
nanotubes can route electrical signals on a chip faster than traditional copper
or aluminum wires, at speeds of up to 10 GHz. The breakthrough could lead to
faster and more efficient computers, and improved wireless network and cellular
phone systems, adding to the growing enthusiasm about nanotechnology's revolutionary
potential.
"Our prior research showed that nanotube transistors
can operate at extremely high frequencies, but the
connections between the transistors were made out
of somewhat slower copper, thus forming a bottleneck
for the electrical signals," said Peter Burke, assistant
professor of electrical engineering and computer
science, and one of the researchers who developed
the technology. "In this technology we show that
nanotubes can also quickly route electronic signals
from one transistor to another, thus removing the
bottleneck."
Electrical signals are routed at high speed through
virtually all modern electronic systems and also
through the airwaves in all modern wireless systems.
"From now on, any time a nanotube device is used
anywhere in the world in a high-speed electronic
device, computer, wireless network or telephone system,
people will benefit from this technology," Burke
added.
A nanotube is commonly made from carbon and consists
of a graphite sheet seamlessly wrapped into a cylinder
only a few nanometers wide. A nanometer is one billionth
of a meter, about the size of 10 atoms strung together.
Most of the layers of a modern semiconductor chip
are dedicated to interconnect wiring, making the
material used, and its speed, extremely important.
The semiconductor industry recently shifted from
using aluminum to copper as interconnects because
copper carries electrical signals faster than aluminum.
Based on Burke's work, it is now clear that changing
the industry from copper to nanotubes would provide
an even larger performance advantage in terms of
speed. Before such a shift could occur, however,
nanotube technology would need to be economical to
manufacture and require precise assembly, a project
Burke is currently working on.
Previous work by the Burke team demonstrated that
nanotubes can carry electrical signals up to several
millimeters across a chip better than copper, but
did not measure how fast the signals propagate. This
work is the first interconnect-technology demonstration
for ultra-high-speed applications. Now that Burke's
team has developed both high-speed nanotube-interconnect
technology and high-speed nanotube-transistor technology,
they hope to integrate the two into an ultra-high-speed
all-nanotube electronic circuit, faster than any
existing semiconductor technology.
Burke conducted the research along with graduate
student Zhen (Jenny) Yu. The findings have been reported
in the June 2005 issue of Nano Letters, a peer-reviewed
journal of the American Chemical Society, the world's
largest scientific society.
The Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research,
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and
the National Science Foundation provided funding
for the research, which took place at UCI's Integrated
Nanosystems Research Facility in The Henry Samueli
School of Engineering.
About The Henry Samueli School of Engineering
The Henry Samueli School of Engineering is one of
the nation's fastest growing engineering schools,
attracting talented engineering faculty and students
from across the nation and abroad. The school consists
of five departments: biomedical engineering, chemical
engineering and materials science, civil and environmental
engineering, electrical engineering and computer
science, and mechanical and aerospace engineering.
The school is home to numerous research centers,
including the Integrated Nanosystems Research Facility,
the National Fuel Cell Research Center, the Center
for Embedded Computer Systems, and the Center for
Pervasive Communications and Computing. Additionally,
it is a major participant in the California Institute
for Telecommunications and Information Technology,
Calit2. Further, more than a third of the school's
95 faculty members are fellows in professional societies
and seven have been elected into the National Academy
of Engineering. For more information, please visit www.eng.uci.edu .
About the University of California, Irvine
Celebrating 40 years of innovation, the University
of California, Irvine is a top-ranked public university
dedicated to research, scholarship and community
service. Founded in 1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing
University of California campuses, with more than
24,000 undergraduate and graduate students and about
1,400 faculty members. The second-largest employer
in dynamic Orange County, UCI contributes an annual
economic impact of $3 billion. For more UCI news,
visit www.today.uci.edu .
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