In 1965, Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel, observed that the number of transistors on a chip was doubling every year at minimum cost increases. In the ensuing months, this statement became known as Moore’s Law within the industry and has held true for more than 40 years. Moore amended that statement in 1975 to say the number of transistors doubled about every 18 months, at minimal cost.

However, that phenomenal success is slowing as the ability to shrink silicon devices further nears its limit. Today, the Moore’s Law timeline is up to 24 months and over the next several years, it may become more difficult to achieve the increase in processing power at minimal manufacturing costs. As a result, semiconductor manufacturers have sought new methods of manufacture and new materials for components.

That’s where AmberWave Systems (AmberWave) comes in.

AmberWave is focused on developing new materials technology, including ones that will allow semiconductor manufacturers to continue to extend the processing power and economics of silicon using existing manufacturing techniques, which is critical considering the cost of today’s semiconductor manufacturing facilities. More capable chips that use less power will pay dividends for consumers as they deal with the huge amounts of data available today.

The choice material of a given era is often its defining point – The Stone Age and Bronze Age are classic examples – making materials science one of the oldest forms of engineering and applied science.

The goal of materials science is to fundamentally understand the elemental structure and form of specific materials so that new materials with the desired properties can be developed and exploited. The result has been the development of revolutionary technologies such as plastics, biomaterials and semiconductors.

Materials science involves relating the desired physical property and relative performance of a material in a certain application to the structure of the constituent atoms and molecules, along with the phases in the material through characterization. The major determinants of a materials structure are its constituent chemical elements and the way in which it has been processed into its final form. These, taken together and related through the laws of thermodynamics, govern the material’s microstructure.

This understanding of atomic structures, particularly in semiconductor crystals, has allowed AmberWave engineers to develop a number of firsts for the semiconductor industry. These include the first sub-45nm and sub-25nm strained silicon FET, the first high-frequency circuit on strained silicon, and the first metal gates with strained silicon channels. In addition, AmberWave researchers were the first to demonstrate economically feasible wafer-scale strained silicon and the first strained silicon-on-insulator (SSOI) wafers free of silicon germanium.