Intel’s Implements Breaktrough Technology in Forthcoming CPUs

Intel today announced the use two dramatically new materials to build the insulating walls and switching gates of its 45 nanometer (nm) transistors. The “one of the biggest advancements in fundamental transistor design” allows the company to achive record-breaking PC, laptop and server processor speeds, while reducing the power consumption, according to the press release.

The breakthrough technology will be inside the next generation Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Core 2 Quad and Xeon processors. The company also said it has five early-version products up and running - the first of fifteen 45nm processor products planned from Intel.

Intel will use a new material with a property called high-k, for the transistor gate dielectric, and a new combination of metal materials for the transistor gate electrode.

“The implementation of high-k and metal materials marks the biggest change in transistor technology since the introduction of polysilicon gate MOS transistors in the late 1960s,” said Intel Co-Founder Gordon Moore.

The transistors are tiny switches that process the ones and zeroes of the digital world. The gate turns the transistor on and off and the gate dielectric is an insulator underneath it that separates it from the channel where current flows. The combination of the metal gates and the high-k gate dielectric leads to transistors with very low current leakage and record high performance, Intel explains.