IBM Corp’s Microelectronics division has quietly begun production runs of its first silicon germanium chips, according to The New York Times. Nobody at IBM was immediately available for comment. Silicon germanium (SiGe) semiconductors, which IBM is using to develop high-speed chips for the communications industry, is three-to-five times quicker than current generation silicon, and the power consumption is two times lower. It offers higher densities than gallium arsenide, and can operate at speeds greater than 100GHz. Semiconductors can be manufactured cost- effectively in existing silicon fabrication facilities. IBM Microelectronics has worked on the process research in conjunction with the IBM Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York since the early 1980s. It also has a collaborative project with Northern Telecom Ltd on SiGe development. The New York Times said that IBM’s updated Burlington, Vermont plant began producing the chips in large quantities last week for customers that included Hughes Electronics, Harris Semiconductor, National Semiconductor Corp, Northern Telecom and Tektronix Inc. The five have licensed IBM’s technology for incorporation into their own products, and IBM told the paper that it had another two dozen customers, currently unidentified. Estimates price the chips at a tenth of the cost of an equivalent cluster of components that today would come to around $100.
