Physics New method should enable even smaller computer chips

With a new technique, microchips can be even more densely populated with circuits. The researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), who developed this technology, want to use it to further advance the miniaturization of computer chips.

Miniaturization is making computers ever smaller and more powerful at the same time, the PSI announced on Tuesday. This is what makes developments such as artificial intelligence and 5G possible in the first place.

The most modern microchips currently available have conductor paths that are twelve nanometers apart. With their new technique, the researchers created conductor paths that are five nanometers apart. To give you an idea: five nanometers is the same as the thickness of a hair and half a centimetre the length of a football pitch.

Not yet interesting for industrial production

According to the research institute, the light with which the circuits are applied to the chips is decisive for the reduction in size and ever more compact chips. So-called photolithography is used for the production of microchips: A light-sensitive layer, the photoresist, is applied to a thin slice of silicon, known as a wafer.

Light can be used to burn conductive tracks onto the photoresist. In the new process, the photoresist is not directly irradiated with extreme ultraviolet light (EUV) as is normally the case. Instead, the light is reflected by two mirrors.

This approach is currently uninteresting for industrial chip production, as it is very slow compared to industrial standards and can only produce simple structures instead of a chip design, the PSI wrote. However, it offers a method for the early development of photoresists, which will be needed for future chip production.