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News Micron's Hybrid Memory Cubes win tech award

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by brumgrunt, 27 Jan 2012.

  1. brumgrunt

    brumgrunt What's a Dremel?

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  2. azazel1024

    azazel1024 What's a Dremel?

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    This doesn't sound remotely like FINFET technology (Intel's trigate transisters). One is a 3 dimensional interconnect instead of being planar (2d interconnect). This is actual interconnects BETWEEN transitors, not within the transistor itself (which is what FINFET is all about).
     
  3. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Which is why I said it was "not dissimilar," rather than "exactly the same." Both are about extending things which are usually two dimensional into the third dimension.
     
  4. ffjason

    ffjason What's a Dremel?

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    lol @azazel1024 - you been told!!
     
  5. ch424

    ch424 Design Warrior

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    azazel1024 is correct though, tri-gate transistors and stacked dies do have very little in common.
     
  6. Bakes

    Bakes What's a Dremel?

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    That is the only way in which they are similar, though. By the very same logic, you could add 3D printing to the list. In fact, it seems as though 3D printing is actually a superior analogy to use!
     
  7. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Sure, that's a superior analogy - if you ignore the fact that it's about improving computing power and performance by extending things which are traditionally two dimensional (either the transistors themselves in tri-gate or arrays of transistors in HMC) into the third dimension. Then 3D printing is a pretty poor analogy, wouldn't you say?
     
  8. Bakes

    Bakes What's a Dremel?

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    Not particularly. There have been many attempts to improve computing power by integrating 2d packages into 3d.

    The Apple processors for example have several dies inside, mounted atop each other, in order to reduce space - using what I can only assume is a similar method (might not be, but the article is unclear).
    [​IMG]

    With 3D printing, layers are often printed atop each other, with chemical bonds joining the layers together, improving the process.

    If you consider your exact wording,
    you can see that your comparison is not correct, with the technologies being different. Tri-gate transistors are three dimensional, sure, but I fail to see the vertical conduits linking layers of silicon you speak of in their production process.
     
  9. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Okay, my wording was unclear: I didn't meant to infer that tri-gate uses TSV (although I can see how it reads that way,) but simply that tri-gate is another example of 2D-to-3D in chipmaking. In retrospect, it'd have been much clearer as a separate sentence: "Another example of chipmakers taking a 2D technology and expanding it to the third dimension is..."
     
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