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Nano Barrier Keeps Growing

The microchip industry has seen new materials shrink transistors, again. Getting smaller and faster, constantly, according to the now famous Moore?s Law, it is now Intel?s turn to announce yet another breakthrough. The chip making company has announced that the next line of chips, production of which is to start soon, will be as little as 45 nanometres (billionths of a meter) wide.

Size has an effect not only on the usages of the chips but also on their speed and efficiency. Intel is not alone, however. Nano technology will also be used by IBM in cooperation with Toshiba, Sony and AMD. The timeline quoted by IBM is 2008. Intel will begin production later this year.

Intel will call the processors Penryn. They will pack over 400 million transistors into a single tiny chip half the size of a postage stamp. Dual core chips, to come out as well as quad core chips, will be closer to the size of a proper stamp. The current size of chips produced is 65 nanometers. The new generation chips will not only be smaller, but also solve some problems that were typical of the previous generation. Materials used in the new chips will be different than that used in the 65 nanometer chips. These silicon substitutes are called high-k metals.