It's front-page news today in the NYT and elsewhere: transistor jockeys at Intel will be the first to market with processors based on a 45-nanometer process, dramatically boosting performance and/or lowering power requirements for the new devices compared with the current 65nm parts. With the use of "high-k gate dielectrics" made with hafnium metal, Intel is implementing the biggest improvement in fundamental semiconductor technology in 40 years, according to company co-founder Gordon Moore (long retired, but sending in his two cents from Hawaii).Intel is building two entirely new fabrication facilities to build the new process chips, in Arizona (up and running midyear) and Israel (early 2008). Of course, the part of this news we care most about 'round here: the new chips, codenamed "Penryn," are already running Mac OS X in the lab, will most likely be completely compatible with the existing Core 2 processors (with the addition of SSE4), and Intel expects a double-digit performance boost for media applications. Now that's what I'm talking about.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-27-2007 @ 12:14PM
Robert Scoble said...
I have a video tour of the 45 nm fab at Intel up here: http://scobleizer.com/2007/01/26/getting-a-look-at-intels-new-45nm-fab/
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1-27-2007 @ 12:36PM
Bernie said...
It's hafnium oxide not hafnium metal
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1-27-2007 @ 1:42PM
Mike Rose said...
#1 -- Robert, thanks for letting us know, that's worth a separate post!
#2 -- you're right, it's a halfnium oxide high-k dielectric with a metal gate above it. Diagram at
http://www.intel.com/technology/silicon/pix/hk_mg_transistors.jpg
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1-27-2007 @ 5:44PM
Michael Rose said...
So, I actually had to ask a buddy who used to sell semiconductor equipment to explain why a high-k dielectric is important. His response:
"K is the dielectric constant - you might remember something about that from AP Physics in high school. High K means high resistance. The idea is that you only want current to flow in the desired direction in a transistor - leakage current causes heat, which means that power is being lost. High-k helps reduce leakage current."
To put it another way, switching to a high-k dielectric is like switching from paper insulation on electrical wire to rubber or glass, with better insulating qualities.
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1-27-2007 @ 6:18PM
Trevor said...
"The technology effort was led by Mark T. Bohr, a longtime Intel physicist..."
With a name like Bohr, I guess you're pretty much destined to become a physicist.
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1-29-2007 @ 3:03PM
navstar said...
Well double-digit could mean 10%.
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