IBM Stacking Chips Pringles Style
IBM has announced a breakthrough processor technology today that has the computer company stacking chips like a tube of Pringles. The breakthrough will make portable devices faster, smaller and use less battery power.
IBM is calling the new technology "through-silicon vias". It's a method of processors in a three dimension to allow them to communicate and share processes with greater efficiency. Conventional chip technology has separate processors laying side by side on a silicone wafer. These processors must communicate through wires which takes more time, energy not to mention more metal. IBM's new method uses "through-silicon vias, these are the "stacked" that run between processors allowing communication with little delay and far less energy. This technique, according to Lisa Su, VP of the Semiconductor Research and Development Center at IBM, will decrease the distance that data needs to travel through conventional chips by about 1000 times and allows up to 100 times the number of pathways through which processors can communicate.
The computing giant is touting the new technology as the next great idea that will extend the life Moore's Law. IBM sees this new technology revolutionizing wireless communications technology and will also use through-silicon vias to power the fastest computer in the world it's Blue Gene Super-Computer.
