Researchers — selling used cars for new?

07/01/2001

Researchers — selling used cars for new?
In the article "Newly defined limit provides a key to future developments in microelectronics" (April 2001, p. 36), it is stated that some researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have determined a new fundamental limit that defines a minimum (activation) energy for a statistical process (of a binary switch). The equation that the probability of a thermodynamic statistical process p is defined by p = exp(-E/kT) with E as the activation energy is as old as thermodynamics itself, and can be found in many standard books of thermodynamics and statistics (e.g., Reif et al.).

Claiming, therefore, that p = exp(-E/kT) needs to be >0.5 to get a probability >0.5 for a transition is nothing else than von Neumann's equation. If anybody claims this as a new discovery, it's like selling a used car as a new one!
Lars Wende
Kirchheim, Germany
e-mail [email protected]

Editor's note:
It could very well be that some subtlety in our wording of the article made it seem like Georgia Tech had made a "fundamental" discovery.

What they were doing was defining limits, and this boils down to the minimum that can be reached with the physics available to us.

I don't think they were working on doing the fundamental physics. They were just determining which physics applies to define the limit.

No new physics was discovered, but the story underscores the importance of defining what the limits are for the technology we are using.

Clarification
The heads in Table 4 on p. S12 of the article "Analysis of a 200/300mm Vertical Furnace with Integrated Metrology" (April 2001) were switched.

They should have read "Mode 1: Do not wait for test results, Mode 2: Wait for test results."