Intel plans to use carbon nanotubes to extend life of its chips

Microprocessor giant Intel has plans to use carbon nanotubes to extend the life of its computer chips.

London, June 18 : Microprocessor giant Intel has plans to use carbon nanotubes to extend the life of its computer chips.

In a patent published last week, Intel has revealed how nanotubes' strength and heat-dissipating properties can be used to reinforce the conducting copper tracks that connect millions of transistors together.

According to Intel scientist Chi-Won Hwang, depositing heat-sink nanotubes on electrically insulating layers adjacent to the copper tracks slashes the thermal stress caused by fast-pulsing electric currents.

Such stress can cause tracks to fracture, rendering some chips useless, Hwang says.

According to New Scientist, such super-strong tubes also boost a chip's resistance to impact shock.

Incidentally, in another research, scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who had developed a new method of compacting carbon nanotubes into dense bundles, had found that these tightly packed bundles were efficient conductors and could one day replace copper as the primary interconnects used on computer chips.

They could even hasten the transition to next-generation 3-D stacked chips, they said.

ANI