On Friday, Intel began revealing information on it's new 45nm fabrication process, and the resulting chips. The key development of the new design (to be codenamed Penryn) is the inclusion of a Hafnium based insulator piece, raplacing the conventional silicon dioxide insulator.
So what does that mean for everyone who's just gone and bought a Core 2 Duo, a 65nm chip? Yes, there are new chips coming, some time in late-07 early-08, but impressively, they will leak less electricity, enabling them to run faster without the resultant gain in temperature. This is coupled with a change in the gate on the chip, again from silicon dioxide, to a metal gate that for secrecy reasons, Intel won't reveal the exact composition of. The important part, that change may allow Intel's engineers to bring about a 20% increase in clock speed or a 5x (times) reduction in leakage.
IBM have stated they have, similar, competing technology, developed in conjunction with AMD, but it is aimed at the high end sector of the computer industry, whereas Intel's development is aimed squarely at it's processors for home / office use. Seems that Moore's law may continue a little while longer...
Find more information:
New York Times Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/techn … =permalink
Tom's Hardware Huide Article:
http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/01/27/intel … n_details/
Kmarion's Reporting on what Intel Chief Paul Otellini had to say:
http://forums.bf2s.com/viewtopic.php?id=61044
So what does that mean for everyone who's just gone and bought a Core 2 Duo, a 65nm chip? Yes, there are new chips coming, some time in late-07 early-08, but impressively, they will leak less electricity, enabling them to run faster without the resultant gain in temperature. This is coupled with a change in the gate on the chip, again from silicon dioxide, to a metal gate that for secrecy reasons, Intel won't reveal the exact composition of. The important part, that change may allow Intel's engineers to bring about a 20% increase in clock speed or a 5x (times) reduction in leakage.
IBM have stated they have, similar, competing technology, developed in conjunction with AMD, but it is aimed at the high end sector of the computer industry, whereas Intel's development is aimed squarely at it's processors for home / office use. Seems that Moore's law may continue a little while longer...
Find more information:
New York Times Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/techn … =permalink
Tom's Hardware Huide Article:
http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/01/27/intel … n_details/
Kmarion's Reporting on what Intel Chief Paul Otellini had to say:
http://forums.bf2s.com/viewtopic.php?id=61044
