Meanwhile, Intel's decision may boost the prospects of MIT spin-off AmberWave Technology (Nashua, N.H.). The 40-person company has developed a form of strained silicon that it has licensed to Advanced Micro Devices and to new AMD technology and foundry partner UMC Corp., among others.
Until last week, Intel had remained quiet about strained silicon, breathing not a word of interest at the various academic conferences, where the technology has become a mainstream research topic. As recently as June, at the 2002 Symposium on VLSI Technology in Honolulu, Intel managers adopted a skeptical pose, questioning whether strained silicon as IBM and others had described it would be worth the additional costs (see June 17, page 1).
But behind that curtain of public disdain, Intel was moving strained silicon technology into test manufacturing. In March it announced that test SRAM chips were being made at 90-nm design rules at its development fab in Hillsboro, Ore. What it failed to mention was that strained silicon was part of the process flow.