Even smaller

1997/04/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Elektronika

If before the chips were small, from now on they will be even smaller. Chips will have many more electronic components than they have now. For this purpose the lenses used by the telescopes will be used. The lens will eject X-rays and the rays will allow to build a transistor of diameter equal to the mile of the millimeter.

The smallest chip made to date is 0.18 microns. The normal manufacturing system of these chips is as follows: a beam of light crosses a mask with a screen shape and the circuit is engraved on the rear bracket. Due to the influence of the diffraction, the edges of the circuit are not cleaned and therefore very small components could not be used in the chips.

However, the smaller the wavelength of the light beam, the less damage the diffraction produces. The wavelength of X-rays is very short, so very small chips can be made, considerably reducing diffraction problems.