IBM Makes Advancements

ZURICH, Switzerland -- IBM (NYSE:IBM - News) researchers today announced an advancement in computer-based simulations that is helping to drive chip technologies to new heights of performance and function. As reported in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters, a team of scientists at IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory for the first time used advanced supercomputer-based models to more deeply understand and master the complex behavior of a promising new material -- hafnium dioxide -- in silicon transistors, the fundamental building blocks of computer chips.

The new material is key to the company's recently-announced "high-k metal gate" technology, the first major change to the transistor since the emergence of silicon semiconductors, promising enhanced chip performance to benefit computers and other electronic systems. IBM is implementing the technology and will apply it to products in 2008.

IBM Corp.