14 DAY TRIAL // Hold on to your circuits, Intel has reached a new miniaturization threshold. Hardly had the production lines for the 65 nanometers chips been able to cool off, that the engineers led by Otellini increased the number of transistors even more and reached 45 nanometers.
The company announced yesterday the first SRAM (Static Random Access Memory) test chips which incorporate 45 nanometer technology, 2007 being the year scheduled for mass production.
According to the press release, the chips on 45 nanometers have five times less leakage power than the 65nanometers ones. This will improve battery life for mobile devices and increase opportunities for building smaller, more powerful platforms.
The 45nm SRAM chip has more than 1 billion transistors and consists of 153MB of memory. To have an idea about the progress made by Intel, it's interesting to know that a chip of the same size using 130nm process technology was able to store only 18 megabytes.
The announcement made by Intel is in accordance to Moore's Law, which says that the number of transistors will double every two years, in 2005, the company manufacturing the first 65 nanometer chips.
"Being first to high volume with 65nm process technology and the first with a working 45nm chip highlights Intel's leadership position in chip technology and manufacturing," said Bill Holt, vice president and general manager, Intel Technology and Manufacturing Group.
Intel's 45 nanometer creations will be mass produced in two factories, currently under construction: Fab 32 in Arizona and Fab 28 in Israel.
RESURSE
Intel Waves Good-Bye to the Pentium Brand
Intel to Make More than Just Processors for Apple?
