Blue Gene develops hafnium oxide picture
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Scientists at IBM’s Zurich Research Laboratory have blended their expertise in computer based modeling with the capabilities of IBM’s Blue Gene supercomputer to determine why hafnium dioxide works so much better than other high k materials.
As a result, the researchers gained a clear picture — for the first time — of the underlying physics driving the electrical behavior of hafnium dioxide when it mixes with silicon, shedding light on the reasons that make this material useful as gate dielectric.
The IBM team simulated 50 different models of hafnium silicates, formed when silicon and hafnium oxides mix. These models contain up to 600 atoms and approximately 5000 electrons, representing a realistic system.
A single calculation of the dielectric constant was accomplished in five days of computing time on the Blue Gene/L supercomputer (4096 processors) in Zurich. The complete simulation for all 50 models – around 250 days on Blue Gene – would take 700 years to calculate using the most powerful laptop pc.
“Advances in algorithms and their optimal mapping on extremely large and scalable computer hardware such as Blue Gene are empowering us to do accurate and realistic atomic simulations of complex materials,” explains Alessandro Curioni, computational material scientist and supercomputing expert from IBM’s Zurich lab. “So we are able to use supercomputers to investigate materials that will eventually be used in the next generation of supercomputers.”
