Intel has unveiled a couple of details about the new 45nm fabrication process of electronic chips that will be used for the Penryn (code name of the successor of the current Core 2 Duo).
Having an early control of a new fabrication processes is a key factor in the semiconductor industry as it defines the possible evolutions of future chips for frequency, semiconductors and power consumption. Intel is a reference in this domain and reaffirms once more its position of leader with the announcement of the 45 nm fabrication process and the first functional chips coming from production lines that will equip three factories by the first half 2008. This announcement is a blow to AMD who has just started selling 65 nm processors.
With the 45nm process, the size of transistors is divided by two and it can lead to a reduction of production costs or an improvement of the number of transistors; number that will increase from 290 million for the Core 2 Duo 4 MB to 410 million for the Penryn with 6 MB of cache.
Penryn core with 6 MB of L2 cacheWith 45 nm, Intel improves the concept and brings in-depth modification to the transistors. This is something that hasn't been done for a long time and that was necessary to continue the power competition that started a few decades ago. A transistor is a device that uses a small amount of voltage or electrical current to control a larger change in voltage or current (Wikipedia). The above part of the transistor, the gate, produces a field when it receives an electrical current and opens the path to the signal in the transistor. This gate needs, of course, to be isolated from other components of the transistor to separate the signal that arrives to the transistor from the signal that goes through the transistor (or not). This insulator, the dielectric of the gate, must be capable of letting through a field as strong as possible (to have a signal as clear as possible) and not let the current escape when it reaches the electrode of the gate. This leakage phenomenon leads to several problems: reduction of the signal quality, excessive power consumption, overheating…
Current technologies are problematic since the insulator (silicon oxide) can't be thinner without bringing important leaking issues. Moreover, the polysilicon electrodes of the present gate have an area that is poorer in conductor elements at the frontier with the dielectric. In consequence, it results in increasing of the isolator effective thickness and it reduces the performances of the transistor. With 45 nm, Intel has solved all these problems by replacing the polysilicon by a metallic material (the composition of this material isn't disclosed) that doesn't lead to an impoverishment of the frontier conductivity and produces a higher field. The dielectric of the gate is also replaced by High-K material (do not mistake it with Low-K fabrication technologies that has nothing to do with transistors but with interconnections). It increases the thickness of the isolator and let though the field produced by the gate more easily. Intel hasn't given more information about the materials to avoid helping the competition. The only thing we know is that the High-K material is based on Hafnium.
In short, Intel now has a much more efficient combination that allows the fabrication of more efficient, cheaper and smaller transistors. If it looks simple (only two elements need to be replaced), in practice it is much more difficult to handle as each modification brought to such a complex technology brings several obstacles. The industrial aspect also needs to be taken into consideration as efficient production lines needs to be created to use the new fabrication process. In addition, Intel has also stated that no other manufacturer will use this technology before the 32nm step (for the 45 nm, AMD is planning on using metallic grid but not the High-K for the dielectric).
We will have to wait for the end of 2007, date of the introduction of the Penryn, to evaluate the improvements brought to this new fabrication process.
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