3M, IBM set sites on new adhesive for 3-D chips

3M and IBM recently announced plans to jointly develop adhesives that can be used to package semiconductors into densely stacked silicon "towers." The companies intend to create a new class of materials, which will make it possible to build commercial microprocessors composed of layers of up to 100 separate chips, according to the an IBM news release.

"Today's chips, including those containing '3-D' transistors, are in fact 2-D chips that are still very flat structures," said Bernard Meyerson, vice president of research at IBM. "Our scientists are aiming to develop materials that will allow us to package tremendous amounts of computing power into a new form factor—a silicon 'skyscraper.' We believe we can advance the state-of-art in packaging, and create a new class of semiconductors that offer more speed and capabilities while they keep power usage low—key requirements for many manufacturers, especially for makers of tablets and smartphones.”