Intel Increases Transistor Speed by Building Upward

Intel Increases Transistor Speed by Building Upward

HILLSBOROUGH, Ore. — Intel announced Wednesday that by building a key portion of a microprocessor’s transistor above the chip’s surface, it has found a way to make smaller, faster and lower-power computer chips.

Intel intends to break with the basic design of the so-called planar transistor that has remained a constant in the chip industry since 1959 when Robert Noyce, Intel’s co-founder, and Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments independently invented the first integrated circuits.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/97b5f559cbde.png[/atsimg]

But now, when the space between the billions of the tiny electronic switches on the flat surface of a computer chip is measured in the width of just dozens of atoms, designers are increasingly turning to the third dimension to find more room.

I found this linked article in my inbox this morning. I thought I'd share it with you...

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm no expert, just an enthusiast. What took them this long to go 3D? I isn't like this wasn't discussed a while back. I remember reading/hearing rumors back in the early 90s about this possibility.

Interesting nonetheless.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Processors will eventually be cubes with integrated copper cooling solutions. Quad cores etc will be replaces by something more along the lines of CUDA. If you are not familar CUDA, it is Nvidia technology and is in use on many of your graphics cards. It is hundreds of microprocessors on a single chip.

The technology we don't know about is already made, they could release a processor to consumer market that would satisfy for 10 years if they wanted. The system enjoys releasing technology in small steps to maximize profits.

2007 -First one that came up probably something faster by now.

500GHZ Processor By IBM

This is pretty cool.

All I know is that even the lower end processors are already more than enough for 90% of people's uses, at least 90% of the time. I just got a 35w desktop processor that has integrated video and does more than I'll need out of it for at least a couple of years.

Noyce way to keep Mohr's Law at bay! For the moment.

When real estate becomes expensive, the obvious solution is to build up. Silicon based semiconductors have their limits but until somebody designs and commercialises a viable replacement, we are stuck with them.

Good to see someone's thinking laterally. Not literally in this case.....

Using 3D to build makes perfect sense, look at crystals. All we are doing is making artificial chunks of silicone similar to crystals that the earth makes.

I think we should get out of the business of silicone though, we need our DNA computers and quantum. I heard that they had quantum computers mapping elements already which is a good sign.

We should be focusing on long term future because that's when we figure out ground breaking ideas. Big minds with big ideas, not status quo.

S&F

Pred...

thanks I thought a few members would find it interesting.

reply to post by unityemissions

PUN-ishment.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Star and Flag for you.

I am a Computer Impaired type who doesn't even understand the linked joke but I appreciate advances in technology.

Would these processors be more, or less dense than water? Would they be something like 1/2 of the density of silicon do you think?

Originally posted by TheRemedial
reply to post by SLAYER69

 

2007 -First one that came up probably something faster by now.

500GHZ Processor By IBM

edit on 4-5-2011 by TheRemedial because: (no reason given)

You do realize that a single transister does not equal a CPU. Once you make a proper processor out of hundreds of millions of these transistors, you will likely top out at 5 GHZ, and memory will still be the bottleneck.