Researchers claim major chip breakthrough

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have announced a world record for the number of transistors packed onto a single silicon chip.

Electrical engineering and computer science experts say they have developed a new semiconductor transistor so tiny that a single IC can hold 400 times more transistors than before, potentially leading to significantly faster and cheaper chip technology.

The invention of the prototype transistor structure, dubbed "FinFET," was funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency.

Significantly, the scientists say they do not plan to patent the device, in order to encourage chip manufacturers to incorporate the technique. "We want the widest possible usage. We hope this becomes a mainstream transistor structure in the future," said a spokesman for the research team.

The story is posted at www.zdnn.com .