IBM’s advanced semiconductor centre in Fishkill, New York, dedicated to developing Field Effect Transistor circuits in submicron CMOS and bipolar technologies, is the first site in the US destined to house a privately-owned synchrotron storage ring for X-ray lithography. Unfortunately, IBM UK hasn’t gone to any great lengths to publicise the UK origin of the ring, from the Oxfordshire-based company, Oxford Instruments, although IBM Corp did invite the company to share a platform at the opening of the new centre. Synchrotron technology, still a relatively unknown quantity to most people in the computer world, is often used in X-ray lithography. The collision of accelerated particles in the ring generates a shower of X-rays, which are deflected and focussed in a magnetic field to etch very fine lines on silicon. The optics are of a high quality and the beams are very intense, so that in continuous generation, many more wafers can be engraved than by current conventional technology, and it’s possible to etch circuit features of 0.5 microns or below. The compact synchrotron from Oxford Instruments takes around 20 minutes to refill, and can operate for several hours at a stretch. There are a handful of companies actively involved in synchrotron technology, and probably the best known is the one at at the Centre for European Research into Nucleonics in Switzerland, which is sufficiently massive to extend across the border into France. Oxford Instruments’ baby synchrotron – or shrinkotron – storage ring uses superconducting magnets and this enables the company to produce a ring measuring just 6 feet across, and 4 feet long. The German company COSY-Microtec developed a prototype synchrotron in April 1986, and at that time planned to have a machine on the market by 1988, but as yet, that hasn’t happened. The Japanese, as is so often the case, have been most eager to exploit this new technology. Nippon Telegraph & Telephone, Toshiba Corp, and Sumitomo Electronics have also been developing shrinktrons. In 1986, the Japanese Ministry of International Trade & Industry established a consortium called KK Sortec, with 13 member companies putting up funds for a stake, and the Japanese government footing 70% of the cost – but Oxford still appears to retain a world lead, if the thing can be completed successfully. – Janice McGinn