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SAN FRANCISCO - Intel says it will be able to mass-produce computer processors with features one-third smaller than the current cutting edge within two years, placing it well at the front of the semiconductor industry.
The world's largest chipmaker is now moving its technology to 45 nanometres and
has for the first time demonstrated working processors based on 32-nanometre technology, said Chief Executive Paul Otellini.
A nanometre is one-billionth of a meter and is used to measure the width of circuits on a chip. Intel, which makes the processors that power about 80 per cent of personal computers, now uses 65-nanometre circuitry.
Since stumbling in 2005 and losing market share to its rival Advanced Micro Devices, Intel in the middle of last year rolled out new chips with a new design that have propelled it back into the technology lead, analysts said.
Now, having shown it can produce working 32-nanometre chips, Intel has demonstrated that its "tick-tock" strategy is on pace, if not ahead of internal plans.
"They needed to do that for Wall Street," said Envisioneering Group analyst Richard Doherty. "The economics of their tick-tock model were dependent on showing that a little bit early, and they did."
As Intel faces a maturing desktop personal computer market, it must look beyond the still rapidly growing mobile notebook PC market to spur revenue and profit growth. Otellini said forthcoming Core processors would consume only 25 watts or less of power, which could give Intel a bigger piece of the $US200 billion consumer electronics industry.
Plans for Penryn
Smaller sizes allow more circuits to be crammed on a chip, boosting performance of the devices and driving up profits at chipmakers by letting them make more semiconductors from a single platter of silicon.
"The innovations that we as an industry are making today are the basis for the future of the computing environment and probably for the basis of the digital world," Otellini said at the start of Intel's twice-annual developers' forum.
Otellini demonstrated a dinner-plate-sized silicon wafer containing memory chips made with the 32-nanometre technology, saying that Intel could make processors based on the techniques within two years.
That would keep the Santa Clara, California-based company far ahead of smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices, which has said it would move to 45-nanometre chipmaking technology by the middle of 2008.
Otellini said Intel would introduce its 45-nanometer-based processors, code-named Penryn, on November 12. It had previously said it would launch the products by the end of 2007.
He also said that its next-generation design, code-named Nehalem, is complete. On stage at the company's annual technical conference, he had demonstrated a computer that was using a pre-production Nehalem microprocessor.
At a press conference following his keynote, Otellini said that Intel is now revving up two chipmaking plants using 45-nanometre chipmaking technology and said its use of the element hafnium, among other ground-breaking changes in chipmaking, should keep it well ahead of rivals.
"This stuff is hard. It's really hard," Otellini said.
- REUTERS
