Bakin@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (08/13/85)
Hey, this really is serious! The following is a brief article from the August 1985 AdaData newsletter: ----- VLSI Circuits Too Small to Endure? A report in the June issue of the Journal of Defense & Diplomacy states that the lightweight conductors used in very large-scale integrated circuits may be getting too small to withstand the stresses of carrying current. JODD says that even the tiny flow of electricity passing through a chip may be sufficient to displace an aluminum circuit's individual molecules in the same way that traffic can turn an uneven roadway into a streat of potholes. But while the road is usually able to continue to carry its load, the same may not be true of the microscopic conductor, which could actually end up breaking. The magazine therefore recommends that military chip suppliers use heavier metals like tungsten, for which Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, NM) is developing a two-stage vapor deposition process. ----- -- Dave (Bakin -at mit-multics.ARPA)