Intel confident for 10nm and beyond Posted on 07/07/2008 at 20:26 by Nicolas
- source: ChannelWeb
Pat Gelsinger, the first to have carried the title “Chief Technology Officer” at Intel and the current Vice-President and General Manager of the Digital Enterprise Group made a series of interesting statements yesterday in San Francisco in a preview of celebrations that will take place next month for an event marking the 40 years of Integrated Electronics Corporation, aka Intel.
According to him, starting in roughly 2012 the number of companies that have their own "Fabs" will begin to significantly drop off with the transition to 450mm wafers. This figure will eventually be less than 10 and he estimates a capital of more than 1 billion dollars to be able to be part of this very select group. You may recall the creator of the x86 has planned on partnering up with Samsung and TSMC for this next generation of wafers.
Concerning the size of circuits, he thinks someday it should be possible to go under the 10nm bar even if it is not yet known how. However, there is no hurry as his firm will first offer 32nm, 22nm and then 16nm if everything goes well. As a corollary, this means that Moore’s law, which at any rate applies in a very "flexible" way to current needs, should still remain relevant for some time.
Pat Gelsinger, the first to have carried the title “Chief Technology Officer” at Intel and the current Vice-President and General Manager of the Digital Enterprise Group made a series of interesting statements yesterday in San Francisco in a preview of celebrations that will take place next month for an event marking the 40 years of Integrated Electronics Corporation, aka Intel.