Intel and TI brag about chip tech advancements

Two of the biggest names in chips, Intel and Texas Instruments, have taken this fine Monday to announce independent advancements made by their R&D departments in the never-ending search to continue Moore's law. TI kicked things off by unveiling their new 45nm manufacturing process that uses some immersion lithography trickery to trump Intel's current 65nm chips by 30 percent. They plan to use the tech for memory chips. Intel, of course, is not to be outdone, and announced a new better way to insulate circuits. Their new "tri-gate transistors," which should be on the scene by 2010, reduce the power leak problems experienced when transistors are dropped lower than 90nm. The tech could cut power consumption by as much as 35 percent or boost performance by 45 percent. "This will be an option for chips somewhere beyond 45 nm--in the 32 or 22 nm mode--so that gives us confidence we can continue scaling Moore's Law into the next decade," said Intel's Mike Mayberry. The tech also does away with the troublesome carbon nanotubes that IBM has been proposing, which are currently too costly to produce chips with. Now we're just waiting for AMD to announce a 22nm chip due next week and for half the cost, then our day will be complete. Don't let us down, guys!

Read - Intel "tri-gate transistors"
Read - AMD 45nm manufacturing

[goffrie @ Jun 12th 2006 4:27PM]

Um, why does it say AMD instead of TI?

[willyjsimmons @ Jun 12th 2006 4:36PM]

Intel already has 45nm chips planned.

They've also fabbed at 32nm.

[Brian from Texas @ Jun 12th 2006 5:11PM]

Because AMD is the chips Rox0r. But on a serious note I have to say that a 22nm chip due next week and for half the cost is completely unlikely. ;-)

[Christian Habib @ Jun 12th 2006 5:23PM]

The TI article states that TI's 45nm memory cell will be 30% smaller than Intel's 45nm cell (not their 65nm cell). Intel is projecting memory cells that are 0.346u^2 and 0.346 micron^2*0.7 is about .24 micron^2 (the size of TI's cells).

[Phred @ Jun 12th 2006 5:43PM]

goffrie:
That's a joke. It's (possibly) in reference to the facts that AMD (often) makes better and cheaper chips and that this whole business is seeming more and more outrageous (22nm = really dang small). Also, that would make this an all-out competition between 3 of the biggest chipmakers.
Alas, it seems that was, as of yet, fictional (as Brian from Texas has observed).

[Razib Ahmed @ Jun 12th 2006 6:28PM]

"AMD to announce a 22nm chip due next week and for half the cost, then our day will be complete. Don't let us down, guys!"
AMD bosses should pay more attention to media promotion if they want to put up a serious challenge to inter.