{"id":115553,"date":"2017-02-22T09:46:16","date_gmt":"2017-02-22T07:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=115553"},"modified":"2017-02-22T09:46:16","modified_gmt":"2017-02-22T07:46:16","slug":"how-graphene-coated-copper-could-dramatically-improve-future-cpu-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/hardware\/115553-how-graphene-coated-copper-could-dramatically-improve-future-cpu-performance","title":{"rendered":"How graphene-coated copper could dramatically improve future CPU performance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at Stanford have found a way to improve the performance of next-generation processors by <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/semiconductors\/materials\/graphene-could-buttress-nextgen-computer-chip-wiring\" target=\"_blank\">coating copper interconnects with graphene<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest factor influencing the improved performance of processors is transistor scaling, which is the concern of\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mooreslaw.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Moore\u2019s law<\/a><\/strong>, but there are other factors which become important as silicon transistors shrink.<\/p>\n<p>Transistors communicate using copper interconnects, which have begun to approach their limitations as new semiconductor nodes are brought online.<\/p>\n<p>As engineers pack more transistors into the same area, this increases the density of the interconnects \u2013 resulting in increased heat.<\/p>\n<p>The first processors with copper interconnects used 1km of copper wiring per square centimetre, while modern 14nm CPUs contain over 10km of interconnects in the same area.<\/p>\n<p>Copper interconnects are constantly shrinking, becoming thinner and increasing their resistance.<\/p>\n<p>While tantalum nitride trenches are a solution, they are not effective for smaller semiconductor nodes.<\/p>\n<p>Stanford researchers believe coating copper interconnects in graphene will allow progress past the 0.3nm node, while maintaining stability and preventing electromigration.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article first appeared on <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/hardware\/199742-graphene-coated-copper-interconnects-could-boost-cpu-performance.html\" target=\"_blank\">MyBroadband <\/a><\/strong>and is republished with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n<h4><strong>Now read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/hardware\/196858-graphics-card-performance-over-the-years-amd-vs-nvidia.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">Graphics card performance over the years \u2013 AMD vs Nvidia<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at Stanford have found a way to improve the performance of next-generation processors by coating copper interconnects with graphene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":85231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[12465,13978,16909],"class_list":["post-115553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware","tag-cpu","tag-performance","tag-processor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115555,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115553\/revisions\/115555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}