Big Blue Puts Tech Valley at Nanotech Forefront
Published Nov 05, 2008
Cell broadband engine by IBM
Not so very long ago, the words “cell phone” and “small” didn’t belong in the same sentence.
These days, though, a phone just isn’t a real phone unless it’s small enough to lose in your pocket. But tiny phones don’t mean limited technology. These sleek little boxes take pictures, send e-mail and practically brew your morning coffee.
So what allows the functionality to grow despite shrinking dimensions?
Enter nanotechnology.
“We have this world-class research, development and manufacturing going on here in New York, in the Hudson Valley, from Yorktown Heights to the East Fishkill facility to the Albany Nanotech Center,” says Gary Patton, vice president of semiconductor research and development at IBM Corp., which operates Dutchess County facilities in East Fishkill and Poughkeepsie.
A recent triumph for IBM and joint development partners AMD, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd., Freescale, Infineon, and Samsung was development of a material called high K/metal gate.
In tiny devices, there is a material that performs much the same function as insulation around copper wires. As technology shrinks, that material has been thinned to a thickness of about three atomic layers.
“We can’t thin it any further, and it’s starting to become very leaky in terms of current, and that’s a power problem,” Patton says. “This high K is a new material that replaces that film and we can achieve the same electrical characteristics as with a material that is much, much thicker.”
The technology has applications across the computing world, far beyond cell phones. But perhaps even more important than its application is the message its development sends about Tech Valley and IBM as an industry leader.
“I think that’s a pretty exciting element,” Patton says. “You’ve got companies sending people from all over the world to basically work with us in partnership here. I think that’s a pretty amazing model.”
IBM affirmed its commitment to Tech Valley with an announcement in July 2008 that it will invest $1.5 billion in Tech Valley initiatives and create up to 1,000 jobs.
The investment includes expansion of its operations at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the University at Albany, creation of an advanced semiconductor packaging research-and-development center at a to-be-determined location and upgrading of its East Fishkill facility.
Since IBM’s location to Dutchess County in the 1940s, the company has forged a powerful relationship with the community.
IBM works closely with educational institutions such as UAlbany, not only to develop technology, but develop the workforce. More than 11,000 people earn their living from IBM in Dutchess County.
“Although we are global, we are also local,” says Sheila Appel, IBM’s corporate citizenship and corporate affairs program director. “We really are an extraordinary economic engine here in the community, from a business standpoint, but I think it goes well beyond that.”
More Insight: Think Small
Nanoscience involves research to discover new behaviors and properties of materials with dimensions at the nanoscale, which ranges roughly from 1 to 100 nanometers.
A nanometer is defined as one billionth of a meter. How small is that?
Consider:
A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick.
Blond hair is probably 15,000 to 50,000 nanometers in diameter,
There are 25.4 million nanometers in an inch.
Source: National Nanotechnology Initiative
Story by Michaela Jackson
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