Intel's Shrinking Chips: Goodbye Silicon Dioxide

Intel is ramping up its 45-nanometer generation of chips, which will result in smaller, faster and more energy efficient chips. Tom Krazit covers the announcement: 

The Penryn chips are the first iteration of the new manufacturing strategy outlined by [Intel CEO Paul] Otellini earlier this year. Intel wants to introduce new chip microarchitectures and manufacturing technologies on a regular two-year cadence, which the company refers to as the "tick-tock" strategy.

Penryn is essentially a shrink of the Core 2 Duo chips, with a few extras like the SSE4 instructions. It's being introduced along with the new manufacturing technology, the "tick" of Intel's plans. Then next year, when the 45-nanometer manufacturing technology is mature, Intel will introduce a new chip microarchitecture code-named Nehalem–the "tock"–with more significant changes to the chip design.

The rapid cadence is designed to ensure Intel won't get fooled again. Advanced Micro Devices caught Intel off guard earlier this decade, introducing a new chip architecture that represented a significant improvement in performance and power efficiency over Intel's chips at the time.

Read the rest of Krazit's story

See coverage on Techmeme 

Watch Robert Scoble's 40-minute video tour of Intel's new 45-nanometer fab in Hillsboro, Oregon, with Intel Senior Fellow Mark Bohr:

Comments

[Tech:]

This article may have mentioned at least to give fair information, that IBM working with AMD and some other Japanese company had made those process improvements (ultra low K materials) a MONTH AGO!
IBM insisting on the fact that the actual toolings could be used, slightly modified implying some cost savings contrary to intel who said that they will have to adapt the tooling to their new process adding to the cost. + the "tic-toc" is nothing new for the majority of manufacturers, since to reduce risks, they alternate "old" architecture on new process and new architecture on proved process.
Please do not re release intel PR without doing a bit of critic search.

2007 Jan 28 06:36 AM

[Wannabe Maven:]

I have seen IBM's technical paper that has a bunch of nice leakage charts and other technical data. But IBM has not manufactured anything complex on its process. That's where the rubber meets the road. When IBM/AMD announces a microprocessor on 45 nm technology, we can talk about peripheral things such as toolings and what not.

2007 Jan 29 11:43 AM