“In a presentation to exclusively invited reporters Friday morning, Intel announced a breakthrough development in microprocessor manufacturing that may be given historical significance in decades to come: the discovery of a new molecular compound material that will replace silicon dioxide in microprocessors using 45 nm and smaller lithographies,” Scott M. Fulton, III reports for BetaNews.
Fulton reports, “It is what both wide-eyed engineers and anxious executives have described as the “Holy Grail of semiconductor technology,” and Friday morning Intel revealed it has developed working 45 nm processor samples running Microsoft Windows Vista, Mac OS X, Linux and other operating systems, where this material – a compound based on the element hafnium, atomic number 72, a frequently occurring impurity in zirconium typically found in fake diamonds – serves as the dielectric gate between the current source and the current drain.”
Fulton reports, “With the hafnium material serving as the gate, Intel will then replace the polysilicon electrode layer with a metal electrode, the exact alloy used here also being kept secret. As a result, transistors for 45 nm semiconductors starting with Intel’s Penryn family will be fabricated at half the size of those used in today’s 65 nm Core 2 processors. At the same time, transistor switching power can be reduced by as much as 30%, while still obtaining a performance improvement of as much as 20%.”
Fulton reports, “Intel’s director of operations for its Digital Enterprise Group, Steve Smith, told reporters to expect a range of five new products using 45 nm lithography to emerge from Intel in the second half of 2007, to be released for the desktop, mobile, and server segments probably the same way the company approached its successful Core 2 Duo rollout last summer, in the following categories:”
• A dual-core notebook processor with a 35W power envelope
• A new dual-core/quad-core processor family for desktops
• A new dual-core/quad-core processor family for dual-processor servers
Fulton reports, “The exact sequence of introduction will depend on customers’ readiness, Smith added. Later, he told reporters he cannot guarantee that every motherboard currently in production for Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors will support these new families, though it’s possible that some may.”
Full article, highly recommended, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Intel announces breakthrough ‘Penryn’ processor family; slated for production in second half 2007 – January 27, 2007
Intel processor breakthrough biggest chip advance in 40 years; coming before year end – January 27, 2007
Intel to announce processor breakthrough; new chips will run faster, consume less power – January 27, 2007
Intel pledges 80-core processor within five years – September 26, 2006
Apple chose well: Anandtech – Intel Core 2 Duo ‘the fastest desktop processor we’ve ever tested’ – July 14, 2006
Apple chose well: Intel poised to take massive lead across the board over AMD – June 07, 2006
Intel first to demonstrate working 45nm chips – January 26, 2006
Intel-based Macs running both Mac OS X and Windows will be good for Apple – June 10, 2005
Apple to use Intel microprocessors beginning in 2006, all Macs to be Intel-based by end of 2007 – June 06, 2005
This is Da Shit. Good work, Intel. More for less is always great, not the least for notebook battery life and power consumption in our globally warming world.
Where are all the whiners complaining about the loss of the G5 and not going with AMD instead of Intel. Maybe now you nitwits will mind your business and stop boring us with your uninformed opinions. As if you know more than Apple and Intel. Get jobs!
Waaa the G5 is faster than last years Pentium!
Waaa the Opteron is faster than last years Xeon!
It’s so great, as a Mac user, to finally be able to hear about Intel’s chip breakthroughs and not have to mutter and grumble bitterly, like we had to in the PPC days.
Too bad that your understanding of eons of climate change is based upon a century of improperly collected data, untested assumptions, inaccurate models, biased conclusions, and a large dose of political extremism. If industrial production of 45-nanometer chips make you “feel” better, I suppose that’s a good thing. However, your giving up your precious notebook, and other electrical and electronic appliances; growing your own crops; and living in the New Dark Ages would be a more realistic testament to your adherence to your own beliefs.
@ Yours Smugly – right on
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@Smugly –
What rock did you wake up under this morning? And what does that have to do with price of hafnium, anywhere in the universe?
me:
IBM and AMD (working in collaboration) recently announced the same thing. They are also using Hafnium as the transistor gate. It’s not an “Intel-only” thing. In fact, and of course they’re going to tout their own product, IBM/AMD announced that comparing Intel’s Hafnium transistor technology and their own is like comparing a “can opener to a Ferrari.”
How’s that for some corporate trash talk??
The thing is, we just don’t have time to entertain the head-in-sand, Pol Pot anti-science wingnuttery anymore. They are wrong about everything anyway, and this is a particularly juicy case of not believeing what is before their eyes.
The scientific community is essentially unanimous in its conclusion about what is happening and the likelihood of dire consequences. The wingnuts love science when it’s good for them– i.e. when it can be bent to make them fabulously rich or kill lots of people–but when it’s used against their poliitical agendas, whoah nellie, it’s all lies without motives.
This will make the sluggishness that still remains in Vista go away
as far the users can perceive any differences between Mac OS X and
Windows Vista.
The faster the chips — and the more energy efficient the laptops —
the less important is good, efficient, optmized code for Office users
working on excel, word and powerpoints in the enterprise.
Office workers need to be productive, and only Windows can give
corporate employees the tools they need to do real world jobs with
microsoft Office Suite.
The speed up of Intel chips, which blurs the difference between good
code and good enough code will be the final nail in the coffin of Apple
never-ready-for-the-enterprise and the real world of Corp IT producrs.
The Zune phone will also rise and beat the iPhone on the bacck of
more energy efficient and faster mobile processors. The underlying
code may be a hack in 1.0 thru (Zune Phone) 3.0 but who cares if the
user interface looks like Vista, if it can open Office documents, and
if Intel new chips make it look to run as fast as Apple’s embedded
version of Unix running the iPhone.
Corporate leaders don’t want i-This and i-That; the brands that sells
in corporate boardrooms is Office-this, Office-that, and Windows.
Use your Intel macs to learn Windows and embrace the future: get a
copy of Windows Vista, and get ready for real jobs in the real IT world.
Both IBM and Intel have been working on high K gate materials for most of the last decade. Halfnium oxide is the one material that both concluded would work. It is interesting that they both announced their “breakthrough” on the same day….
– gws
hmmm… Never wanted a “real” job in the IT world… doesn’t pay sh*t.
Also don’t care what “enterprise” does. I want a computer that works, Windows isn’t it. Because of your “IT” guys, I have to use that crap every day at work. It really ticks me off.
However, Apple has found their market where they can thrive and be successful with a simply better product. I could care less about Windows, I can buy an OS that actually works.
– gws
“Too bad that your understanding of eons of climate change is based upon a century of improperly collected data yadda yadda blah blah loadsofwingnutnonsenseremoved”
Too bad that you’re dead wrong: I’m a geologist by schooling. And I will continue to enjoy using my MacBook, thank you.
another comment for “Powering the Windows Vista Empowering Revolution”
Faster processors, which will continue to get faster over time, will only make Vista suck….faster.
Intel will produce a cost effective chip based on tech in short order. It takes IBM and AMD together to less than equal what Intel can do. Obviously we will see how it pans out. I’ll put my money on Intel ALL DAY against IBM to produce efficient consumer desktop and workstation class products. ALL DAY.
They mis-stepped with netburst. They learned their lesson. And now they have real partner in Apple instead of a 3rd rate software company like MS. Look for the knockout punch to MS Windows coming soon to an Apple store near you.
Anyone who is a true beleiver in the utter futility and ultimate fatality of modern life’s conveniences would eschew the use, ownership, or application of any device, tool, or contraption that sustains the hypothesis of human extinction by petroleum-based living. The true believer in global warming would be the ultimate Luddite, basking in the glow of embers in his cave after a day of foraging for roots and berries.
No, instead the typical global warming hypocrite is fundamentally no different from the persons that he or she preaches to. Global warming advocates eat the same foods, burn the same fuels, wear the same clothes, live in the same homes, drive the same vehicles, and take the same medications derived from the same industrial corporations and consortiums that they condemn. Rather than work to find economical replacements for petroleum, these same global warming advocates can only rant and rave in a frenzy of delusional thinking based upon unsubstantiated worries and fears of the unknown.
Don’t think for a moment that a 45-namometer chip will make a significant difference in preventing “our ultimate demise”. From what I have read of the prophets of global warming, these minor changes in modern life will only delay the world’s destruction, not reverse the slide to extinction. Do the world a favor and find a solution that doesn’t require turning the clock back 1,500 years. I can assure you, few persons living in North America and Europe are going to give up modern conveniences for the New Dark Age.
@Powering
you could only dream Winfanboy. Fact is faster and more capable machines have always opened – and this has always been this way – new ways to use the computer and allowed to do more. It really shows – as usual – the lack of understanding Winfanboys have about anything serious IT.
Exactly the opposite: the faster the chips and more efficient the resources the more important is good, efficient, optimized code running on it. The sluggish mediocre will simply feel less sluggy but will not be able to provide more, while the efficient, optimized OS will allow to do much more with faster and more efficient hardware and the difference will be even more visible about what can’t be done in one platform wrt what can be done in another.
The speed of CPU never blurs the difference between good and mediocre code, on the contrary: it makes it even more visible as the mediocre code more and more becomes the bottleneck of the computer performance. Who cares if the mediocre code allows you to do the old job 30% faster when the clean, optimized one allows you to do 5 more task 30% faster that what it took previously to do one task, now almost in par as one task done by the mediocre code.
Zune Tang (or Powering): you still spout idiocies and again a proof that to be on Windows you have to be ignorant, moron, sucker and totally obnoxious. Did I say idiot as well? OK, here you go: what an idiot. Stick to Windows: you totally deserve it.
Hey buddy, get a clue. The only people who want Vista are pimply gamers and unwashed, uneducated greasy IT/haterz. And they only talk to other oily gamers/IT. Stand back, dork.
The average Joe no longer cares about Windows anymore. And it will soon be the butt of jokes. We are moving into the 2nd phase of the evolution of personal computing. And again it will be Apple that must show the way. This is the iPhone generation.
Can’t we keep the idiot politics off of this site? It pollutes too many sites and blogs as it is.
The big difference between Intel’s technology and IBM’s is that Intel’s is going into production very soon, while IBM’s is still in the lab. Both are great research organizations and make big contributions to civilization – unlike Microsoft’s “contributions;” idea theft, astroturfing, extortion against vendors, shoving garbage down customers’ throats, Microsoft Bob, … . When Apple was dependent upon IBM – and before that Motorola and Freescale – Apple could not get competitive products on time or in the needed quantities. Intel has its weaknesses, but it is great at device physics, along with IBM. And as far as volume delivery, Intel is nonpareil. Apple is teamed up with the best partner.
@Powering the Windows Vista Empowering Revolution…
You will need all the power you can get for chasing Vista-virusses. Don’t forget that in your unperfect Windowsworld!
With all your learning in geology, how do you save the planet from ultimate destruction? Do you find caves for people to live in? Do find places to drill wells for drawing water with a bucket. Seriously, what do you do that prevents the demise of humanity from global warming?
<b>Remember, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.<b>
Ten years ago my chemist teacher at university was working on a fiber-optic microprocessor with MIT professors. Strange? Of course the industry must adhere to Moore’s Law because profit plays a big part in what drives innovation and business. I don’t think I can hold off buying a new fiber-optic computer in 15 to 20 years. However, my Dual 2ghz PPC G5 is awesome. I still think this even after 2.5 years ownership. I could never say that about the Gateway PC’s I owned prior to 2004. After 6months ownership of a Gateway, I was thinking about how I would sell it on EBAY so I could buy another piece of junk.
MacDamnit will be on sick-leave for the next 5 weeks. Going to Rehab for MDN addiction. Yikes!
I would be curious to read your comments what defines “idiot politics” so as not to offend you. Or, maybe, by knowing what you consider “idiot politics” I know exactly what to post to piss you off.
Anyhow, I don’t think that your kind has the moral or legal authority to demand censorship of anyone here. So, kiss my dog’s ass. How do you feel now, canine rectum licker? I feel good and my dog seems to enjoy it, too.
Isn’t it funy how Windows fanatics always resort to asinine comments like the one above about canine licking… or more usually the ‘eloquent’ but moronic: ‘Macs suck’ statement.
All these statements say so much about how ridiculous Windows defenders are..
As someone said, all normal people are fed up with Windows.
There is more junk science in the Global Warming theory than there is in the Climate Change theory.
Climates are changing. Anyone who ventures outside and has lived longer than a couple of decades can see that.
As for Global Warming, how does any warming theory account for areas of the earth that are actually getting colder? Alaska is currently getting more snow in a month than they get in most winters. Only climate change covers that.
Many things cause climate change. Industrial carbon dioxide output is the least of these. Deforestation is historically very significant. So is volcanic activity, sun cycles, meteor impacts and the appearence of organic life on earth.
Drastic climate change happens with great geological frequency. Man has never been responsible in the past. To think that we must be responsible now is the height of conceit.
It is a big, complicated solar system we live in and man is a mere bit player in the solar echosystem.
I am a Windows “Power User”… The faster processor will help me play better games on my Windows PC… Macs suck because they don’t have no good games! And afterall, playing games is what us Power Users Do!!!!!
I don’t know how to do nothin else on a computer but play games so why would I want a Mac???? I’m also not interested in employment cause that will cut into my gaming time (plus there ain’t NO good job for “Power User” game players) MACs Suck. MACs suck!!!…