Maximum PC manufacturing process RSS Feed

Intel Jumping Right to 32nm, Updates CPU Phase-Out Schedule

Paul Lilly — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:55:11 -0500

Development for 32nm is going well for Intel, so well that the chip maker has decided to axe its 45nm Havendale chips before they reached volume production and will make the move to the 32nm Clarkdale instead, according to DigiTimes. Havendale was originally scheduled to launch by the end of the year, but Intel will instead go forward with 32nm Clarkdale in the first quarter of 2010.

Citing sources at motherboard makers, DigiTimes says Intel also plans to mark several processors as EOL (end of life) in the second half of 2009 and through the first quarter of 2010. Among them will be the Core 2 Extreme QX9775, Core i7 940, and a bunch of Core 2 Quad, Pentium, and Celeron CPUs. The chip maker will also begin discontinuing both the Atom 330 and Atom 220 in April 2010.

Meanwhile, the sources say Intel plans to launch the Core 2 Quad Q9505S, a quad-core CPU designed specifically for all-in-on PCs.

Image Credit: Intel

Moore's Law to Hit a Brick Wall at 18nm

Paul Lilly — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:00:10 -0500

Intel co-founder Gordon Moore once predicted that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every 18 to 24 months, a prediction which has been famously dubbed Moore's Law. But according to market research firm iSuppli, the move to 18nm will signal the end of Moore's Law.

"The usable limit for semiconductor process technology will be reached when chip process geometries shrink to be smaller than 20nm, to 18nm nodes," said Len Jelinek, director and chief analyst, semiconductor manufacturing, for iSuppli. "At those nodes, the industry will start getting to the point where semiconductor manufacturing tools are too expensive to depreciate with volume production, i.e., their costs will be so high, that the value of their lifetime productivity can never justify it."

So when exactly will it happen? According to iSupply, in the year 2014. In 2007, Gordon Moore said his prediction could be upheld for at least another decade. Five years from now, one of them is going to be wrong.

Moore’s Law Lives Another Day With Maskless Lithography Trick

Alex Castle — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:49:51 -0500

Image Credit: Wikipedia

When it comes to Moore’s law these days, it seems like everyone’s a cynic. However, now there’s one more reason to be optimistic about the future of miniaturization, as researchers have published a paper describing a lithography technique which may provide a new means of producing chip features smaller than 32nm.

The technique involves the use of quasiparticles called plasmons to focus light at an incredibly high resolution. Chris Lee at Ars Technica describes the technology: “A lens, based on plasmons, can be created by a set of concentric metal rings. The fields from the plasmons in each ring act in such a way as to create a tightly focused spot of light. In principle, these lenses could focus light tightly enough to create features about five to ten nanometers in size.”

The problem with plasmon lenses is that they must be positioned at just 20 nm away from the wafer. The scientists claim to have overcome this hurdle with their new technique, which uses air pressure to control the lens’s distance from the wafer.

Significantly, the new technique eliminates the need to create a new photomask for each revision to the chip, potentially lowering costs and speeding up development.

IBM Making Moves Toward 22nm Chips

Paul Lilly — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:21:12 -0500

It might not be as well publicized as Micheal Phelps' race to 14 gold medals, but there's another kind of race going on in the chip industry, and that's to see who will be the first to reach 22nm. But it might not be Intel leading the way, and instead it looks as though IBM may be emerging as the front runner.

Unlike the path to 45nm and 32nm, getting to 22nm presents some significant challenges for chip makers, one of which includes getting the circuits "printed" in a process called photolithography. As IBM engineer Subu Iyer notes, "Once the wavelength of light becomes comparable to the size of the thing you're trying to print, things break down. The challenge is to use a light wavelength of 192 nanometers because 'extreme ultraviolet' radiation is still impractical."

Iyer went on to say that in terms of physics, getting to 22nm is a tall order requiring a tremendous amount of computation. To help with that, IBM has developed what it's calling the Computational Scaling (CS) initiative, which includes support from several of IBM's partners. If nothing else, this collaboration puts added heat on Intel, who downplayed IBM's foray into 22nm earlier this summer.

Might IBM beat Intel to the punch? Hit the jump and make your prediction.

Image Credit: IBM

40nm GPUs Will Take Away Intel's Lead in Chip Manufacturing

Paul Lilly — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:54:23 -0500

Intel can not only lay claim as the current king of chip technology, but its upcoming Nehalem microarchitecture looks poised to keep the silicon studs on top of the competition well into 2009. AMD has yet to threaten Intel's position ever since Conroe, and while the company remains confident under Dirk Meyer as the new head honcho, it's still playing catch up to Intel's 45nm technology.

The situation gets a little more competitive when switching from CPUs to GPUs, and according to reports, sources at both ATI and Nvidia are saying they will each have a 40nm GPU manufacturing process by the first half of 2009, possibly to be unveiled at next year's CeBit.

Assuming either company meets their target, the accomplishment will unseat Intel as the technological leader in terms of the smallest chip structures, even if only for a short time. The road won't stop at Nehalem and Intel is already busy developing 32nm CPUs, which many expect to be shown off in prototype form at the company's spring development forum in H1 2009. Volume shipments could come as early as Q3 next year.

Even so, if 40nm GPUs materialize as reported, it will mark the first time GPUs will overtake CPUS in terms of production nodes. That won't necessarily make it a better chip, but you can expect plenty of fanfare should Nvidia and/or ATI dethrone the silicon king.

Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi?

Image Credit: Intel