ARM, Freescale and National Semiconductor are among a group of companies working with researchers from five UK universities on a project to investigate the feasibility of new types of semiconductor transistor which are significantly smaller than those used in current ICs.  

The nano-transistor research will be carried out by teams at the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Southampton and York. It has received £5.3m funding from the EPSRC, science funding council.

There is considerable interest across the industry in nanoscale chip technology to move the power and performance of next generation mobiles to new levels.

“The circuits we currently use cannot cope with this form of mismatch and randomness,” says Professor Alan Murray, of the University of Edinburgh. "They will require at least re-design - possibly even complete replacement - with circuits that have not yet been invented.”

The other companies taking part include Wolfson Microelectronics, Synopsys and Fujitsu Microelectronics Europe.

The intention is to use computer-modelling to analyse the behaviour of nanoscale transistors which are expected to be the semiconductor technology at the heart of future generations of mobile phone and handheld devices.

“We can’t wait for silicon technology to create viable, production-line nanoscale transistors. It will then be too late to start looking for ways to use them. We must start now,” said Murray.

The universities will implement a new type of multi-centre research which makes use of shared data and computing power available on a Grid of networked computers across the UK.  "Through close collaboration with our partners, we expect to revolutionise the way in which the disparate teams involved in electronics design process work,” said Professor Richard Sinnott, of the National e-Science Centre at the University of Glasgow.