8 ms·
Intel Reinvents Transistors Using New 3-D Structure
- bryanallen22 15y agoI don't mean to trivialize this, but "reinvent" sounds a little strong to me. This is a modification on silicon design, and a great one, but is just another notch in the miracle of Moore's law. It's more evolutionary than revolutionary. See 2007 for a similar announcement and reaction: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/07/01/27/1614207/Intel-IBM-Announce-Chip-Breakthrough http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/07/01/27/1614207/Intel-IB...
- deweller 15y agoA couple of highlights from the article: "The key to today's breakthrough is Intel's ability to deploy its novel 3-D Tri-Gate transistor design into high-volume manufacturing." "The 22nm 3-D Tri-Gate transistors provide up to 37 percent performance increase at low voltage versus Intel's 32nm planar transistors."
- slackerIII 15y agoWill this allow them to increase clock speeds? They mention a 37% perf increase, but I don't know what exactly they mean by that.
- riledhel 15y agoClock speed is just another metric, not the most important one. You also have chips that do several operations per clock cycle, low power consumption chips, chips that do parallel processing. All these factors affect performance as well.
- juiceandjuice 15y agoNot to mention branch prediction, out-of-order execution, etc...
- alayne 15y agoThe last two comments are true for CPUs, but I think they are only talking about transistor switching speed.
- tspiteri 15y agoThat may be true for a processor, but when talking about transistors, I think that clock speed and power consumption are the metrics to measure.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- repiret 15y agoI would argue that neither of those things are metrics to measure for a transistor, since they are affected by how its used. Properties of the transistor itself are what matter: size, drain and source capacitance, leakage current when off, drain-source voltage drop when on, and probably a dozen things I don't really know about.
- tspiteri 15y agoThe properties you mention are mainly "low level" properties, which in the end affect the "high level" properties that are speed and power consumption. For example capacitance limits clock speed and also has an effect on power consumption, and leakage current reduces power efficiency. Capacitance and leakage current themselves depend on size. I think that the physical properties you mention (and maybe others) may be used to create a model, which can then be used to estimate clock speed and power consumption at different operating points.
- tspiteri 15y agoI would think that they are talking about clock frequency. They do say that you can either have the 37% performance increase, or use less than half the power when at the same performance.
- bff 15y agoIt's probably easier to use that much less power for the same performance than to push the same power in and get higher performance. On smaller size scales power leakage and heat dissipation become bigger issues so you might not be able to push the same amount of energy through as with the larger scale chip.
- Symmetry 15y ago"Performance" doesn't really mean anything by itself without more details in this context, its just a vauge marketing phrase. Go look at the switching-speed/voltage tradeoff charts that pilom linked to at Anandtech to get some meaningful but still very impressive information.
- megaframe 15y agoNo, that limit has been hit by the physical structure of Silicon itself. The perf has to do with more transistors per square area, thus you could fit more "cores" into a single chip or for example, it takes me 2mil transistors to make a 5 clock cycle multiplier but I could get a 1 clock cycle multiplier if I used 5mil transistors. I didn't use to have the physical real estate to do it, now I would, so I'd do the same operation in 1/5 the time.
- sosuke 15y agoI liked Engadget's coverage of the release http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/04/intel-will-mass-produce-22nm-3d-transistors-for-all-future-cpus/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/04/intel-will-mass-produce-2... I'm a sucker for videos. This Tri-Gate tech was first announced in 2002, I love seeing pie in the sky technology come into reality and widespread usage.
- riffraff 15y agothe videos are at the same time incredibly good and incredibly bad, thanks :)
- flipbrad 15y agoWill it blend? That is the question! http://www.willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=unsafe&video=vidcam http://www.willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=unsafe&video...
- ot 15y agoThey are even better than the "get perpendicular" video by Hitachi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xPvD0Z9kz8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xPvD0Z9kz8
- tspiteri 15y agoThe New York Times has an article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/science/05chip.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/science/05chip.html The article links to some graphics: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/05/05/science/05chip_graphic.html http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/05/05/science/05chip_...
- sjtgraham 15y agoThis is the sort of thing I read and think to myself "go check HN comments where someone smart will explain this in layman's terms"
- svjunkie 15y agoAgreed. It's all magic to me but it seems like, if this breakthrough can keep Moore's Law chugging, it's worth a pretty penny. I'm surprised their stock isn't up more today.
- sliverstorm 15y agoThe funny thing about silicon is a breakthrough is only worth anything if it doesn't cost practically anything! (on a per-chip basis)
- eru 15y agoYes, and that's already included in Moore's law, which explicitly talks about costs per transistor.
- bradly 15y agoAnyone know if the 3D structure is patented by Intel? If so, wouldn't this give Intel a monopoly on transistors given how much better this new design performs?
- jacquesgt 15y agoI don't know if it's patented, but TSMC is apparently working on deploying the technology (according to the NYTimes article linked above). So, there are definitely people who think that Intel doesn't have a monopoly on the design. Plus, there's far from a consensus that this is the best design out there. It hasn't been proven in mass production yet. STMicroelectronics, a massive player in microcontrollers (which often go into applications with even tougher power constraints than mobile phones), is pushing Silicon on Insulator pretty for their next generations.
- megaframe 15y agoNo this design was developed back when I was in college, the revolutionary change here is that Intel has a process to actually manufacture these things effectively and get decent yield. IBM had these things built in test cases back in 2007 but didn't have a manufacturing method. Intel will likely not patent or reveal the manufacturing method thats how most semiconductor manufacturing technologies go. They tend to be trade secrets that are a combination of process and machinery which your competitors are unlikely to ever reproduce exactly, so no point in patenting it.
- bradly 15y agoThanks, that makes sense. I did find this patent from Intel about manufacturing the 3D transistor: http://www.google.com/patents?id=1D2gAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false http://www.google.com/patents?id=1D2gAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...
- pfatehi 15y agohere's another one: "TRI-GATE DEVICE WITH CONFORMAL PVD WORKFUNCTION METAL ON ITS THREE-DIMENSIONAL BODY AND FABRICATION METHOD THEREOF" http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2008/0157207.html http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2008/0157207.html
- stephenjudkins 15y agoFrom what I've heard, using 50% as much power for the same performance as the previous generation still will not be sufficient to bring Intel's Atom performance/energy consumption ratio to that offered by ARM chips. However, it's a huge leap in the right direction. Add better-designed power-saving features on the next generation of Atom chips, and future process shrinkages, and it's easy to see ARM's lead getting chipped away until it's gone.
- nextparadigms 15y agoAtom is 2 generations behind in the manufacturing process compared to this. They'll barely start making them at 32 nm next year, and that will last for another 2 years.
- wmf 15y agoIntel recently announced that they're going to catch up Atom (semi-misleadingly marketed as "faster than Moore's Law") so they're at 45 nm now, they'll release 32 nm Atom later this year and 22 nm Atom in early 2012.
- nextparadigms 15y agoThat's not what they meant. They meant that instead of doubling Atom in performance every 18-24 months(have they even done that so far?), they'll try to double it every 12 months, just like the ARM chips are currently doing. They can't switch the manufacturing process every year.
- ajross 15y agoThis is orthogonal. An ARM Cortex (or GPU, or whatever) on this process would see similar gains. It's also worth pointing out that current Atoms in the market are still 45nm parts, not even 32nm. Intel, for obvious reasons, tends to prioritize production of high-margin desktop and server CPUs over low-margin embedded parts. Really, this announcement isn't about ARM-based vs. Intel-based SoC designs. I think it's clear that Intel has some catching up to do there. This is about Intel cementing and extending its complete and total dominance of high end digital logic fabrication. At this point they look to be about a full two years ahead of everyone else. AMD, IBM, Samsung, TI, TSMC and the rest of that crew have to be more than a little worried. Objectivity disclaimer: my wife is at Intel working on precisely this 22nm process. So I'm about as biased a source as you can find.
- makmanalp 15y ago"the world's first 3-D transistors, called Tri-Gate, in a production technology" I wonder if this is truly Intel's invention or not: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=tri+gate+transistor&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C22&as_ylo=&as_vis=0 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=tri+gate+trans...
- tel 15y agoThere's an enormous difference between writing a paper on a design and prepping up to produce them at Intel's scale. Even if they didn't invent the object, they invented the processes to make it a reality outside of a lab.
- zosi 15y agoAll of those papers either post-date Intel's announcement from 2003 regarding tri-gate transistors, or are written by Intel employees. That search also brings up multiple patents held by Intel on the technology.
- csomar 15y agoThe world's first in a production technology
- dantle 15y agoIf you're ever wondering if Intel invented something related to transistors, the answer is probably yes.
- jws 15y agoThis Intel R&D paper sums the technology up and has a picture that makes it clear what they are doing: http://www.intel.com/technology/silicon/integrated_cmos.htm http://www.intel.com/technology/silicon/integrated_cmos.htm In a nutshell, the drain/source is a tall trace, the gate approaches from the side and climbs over the drain/source, covering it on three sides.
- ableal 15y agoThe good stuff (discretely linked from the press release) is here: http://newsroom.intel.com/docs/DOC-2032 http://newsroom.intel.com/docs/DOC-2032 . In particular, this PDF has color drawings of the devices, and SEM pictures: http://download.intel.com/newsroom/kits/22nm/pdfs/22nm-Details_Presentation.pdf http://download.intel.com/newsroom/kits/22nm/pdfs/22nm-Detai... It is as you said - instead of the gate controlling the flow in a shallow ditch (the old "2D" does have some depth ;-), they built up a pipe and the gate is the choke around it. Well, that should help stem the pesky leakage current problems that plague the deep sub-micron technologies ...
- SlipperySlope 15y agoCurious as to what clock speeds will be available when Ivy Bridge is released in the first half of 2012? If one expects a 37% performance increase at low voltages, then what would be the performance increase at standard voltage? 20% or so?
- SlipperySlope 15y agoAnantech gives a gate-delay chart and explains that Ivy Bridge will be 18% faster at the standard voltage compared to Sandy Bridge. That might mean Ivy Bridge CPU parts at 4 GHz as compared with Sandy Bridge parts at currently at 3.4 GHz.
- GavinB 15y agoIt will be interesting to see whether patents will make this a defensible innovation. Will AMD et all have to invent a similar but materially different technology in order to keep pace?
- vondur 15y agoI often wonder at the incredibly small size of these chips (22nm) if the have to worry about relativistic effects of electrons "jumping".
- megaframe 15y agoShort answer yes. Thats how transistors work in general, but the problem is you get small enough and its like the transistors want to turn them-selfs on, luckily the smaller you go the more leakage you get into other areas of the chip so those extra electrons just get seeped into there and ground out which mostly causes you to pull more power per square area. You real issue is if those "jumping" electrons get wedged into corners near gates, then they can leave a transistor on permanently. But that's all part of the chip design process to avoid that kind of thing.
- jnhnum1 15y agoyeah, they do. but those aren't relativistic effects, they're quantum effects.
- nightlifelover 15y agoThe quantum tunneling effect [1] is what you are referring to, right? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling
- vondur 15y agoYes, sorry, been a while since I took P-chem.
- Symmetry 15y agoAwesome! The current a transistor can put out is porportional to the width over the length and chip designers usually want wide transistors[1], but wide transistors take up space which causes more line capacitance. This innovation will let people put more, wider transistors in a given area which will both increase the current they're putting out and decrease the capacitance they're fighting against, leading to higher frequencies[2]. [1] Wider transistors also cause more capacitance for the other transistors that are driving them, but for most modern designs this is smaller than line capacitance. [2] Having transistors closer together can also help overcome speed-of-light delay. This can be important in caches. EDIT: Also, some stuff I didn't notice until reading the Anandtech article is that the thinness of the silicon will give you the same artificial limitation of the depletion region that SOI does, leading to the same accelerated inversion. Oh, and better isolation from the base too. I don't think that I can explain that succinctly for non-EEs so go read Wikipedia on MOSFETs if you're interested.
- daeken 15y ago> Having transistors closer together can also help overcome speed-of-light delay. This can be important in caches. But in this case, while they take up less space, the distance is the same -- they're simply traveling up and over, rather than just over. Unless I'm missing something here.
- Symmetry 15y agoThe number of things of a given size you can fit on a plane within distance R of you is proportional to R^2. The number of things you can fit in a three dimensional space is R^3. So as we utilize 3D more and more things will tend to be closer together.
- daeken 15y agoThey're closer together, but the distance traveled in total is the same. Imagine the transistors are pieces of paper, and you're drawing a line over them. If the paper is flat, then you're drawing a line of distance n, and the points are n apart. If you fold the ends of the paper together, then the points are 0 units apart (or near enough to make no matter), but that line still has a distance of n.
- kin 15y agosometimes i feel like intel should space out their chips more. as a consumer i feel like i can't keep up.
- absconditus 15y agoWhy do you need to keep up?
- wtracy 15y agoAs a consumer he might not have any good reason to do so, but look at it from Intel's perspective: They're potentially not getting the best return on their R&D investment by encouraging customers to regularly skip generations.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- space-monkey 15y agoMost people don't upgrade their CPUs. Most people don't know what generation their CPU is from when they buy.
- nextparadigms 15y agoI think this will mostly help increase the life expectancy of the Moore's Law by another 10 years or so. When we'll get to 11nm or whatever is the limit, we'll just start stacking layers of transistors on each other. That will only work until the chips become too thick, though.
- SlipperySlope 15y agoIntel is projecting to be at 10nm in 2015, way ahead of the industry lithography roadmaps published five or ten years ago. Below 10nm, Intel and other fabricators will start looking beyond CMOS, perhaps to carbon based structures.
- nextparadigms 15y agoI wouldn't say way ahead. They are about a generation ahead. When Intel was at 45, the ARM makers were 65. Intel at 32, ARM makers at 40/45. When Intel will be at 22. ARM makers will be at 28/32. When they'll be at 10nm, ARM will be at 14nm using IBM's foundry.
- SlipperySlope 15y agoI agree with what you said, but I'm sorry you misunderstood my point. The ITRS lithography roadmaps for years have assumed that lithography would advance at the rate of 36 months between nodes, e.g. between 45nm and 32nm. But in response to AMD competition in the previous decade, Intel introduced their "tick-tock" cycle in which Intel advances the lithography node every 24 months. Other CPU fabricators have been forced to keep up with Intel's pace, and as you point out they have been a process generation behind. As a result, 10nm will be released in 2015, rather than 2020 as ITRS predicted in much earlier roadmaps. What gets real interesting in just a few years is how Intel and others will get below 10nm. Could be a shift to carbon based structures will be necessary.
- Klinky 15y agoWell Intel was hoping to hit 10Ghz with the Pentium 4 & we know how that worked out. Perhaps they'll hit 10nm in 2015, but a "small delay" in new process technology usually seems to be "12+ months".
- pilom 15y agoAgain one of those "I bet AnandTech has the best description out there" and I go check and am pleasantly surprised. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4313/intel-announces-first-22nm-3d-trigate-transistors-shipping-in-2h-2011 http://www.anandtech.com/show/4313/intel-announces-first-22n...
- dreish 15y agoAh, but PC Magazine has "9 things you need to know" about it, which includes an incorrect explanation of what a nanometer is. I think it's in a sidebar next to their "38 makeup tips for the summer" article.
- espeed 15y agoThis is a big win for graph DBs that need to scale up rather than out.
- DonnyV 15y agoIts funny how at the end of the day basic shapes are still an important rule in technology :-)
- rkon 15y agoIntel stock is up 2% and ARM is down 6% (was down 7.7% in London trading). Looks like their Apple-esque announcement strategy has had some impact.
- illumen 15y agoApple obviously had a heads up on this - since they announced the switch to intel not long ago. Which means they had insider information. I wonder if anyone made billions off it.
- FrojoS 15y agoLooking at these pics http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/05/05/science/05chip_graphic.html?ref=science http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/05/05/science/05chip_... its almost impossible to not get the feeling, that we are still in the stone age and a bright future lies ahead of us.
- PawelDecowski 15y agoWho at Intel thinks type set at 12px is legible?
- helium 15y agoGreat, now I won't have to learn Erlang for a few more years
- pcora 15y agoAnyone care to explain this to a normal person? :)
- andrewcooke 15y agoIt's building electronic components vertically instead of laid out flat (think of a book stood on an edge rather than laid down, kind of). That has two advantages - they take up less room and they don't leak so much electricity to the silicon that they're sitting on.
- pcora 15y agoThank you! :D
- latch 15y agoThe process causes the gate to be exposed to a larger surface area of the source, thus allowing it to have greater control. How? by going 3D. Why? Think of it as a heatsink. If your heatsink was just a flat surface, it would suck. But because it has fins (or pins, or whatever 3d shapes that come out of it), it has greater exposure to ambient air.
- acgourley 15y ago"Moore's Law" is mentioned 14 times.
- JacobAldridge 15y agoI wonder if Gordon Moore had worked for IBM instead of being an Intel founder, whether that number may have been a slight bit smaller.
- SlipperySlope 15y agoAbsolutely! IBM's was never motivated to improve performance for their mainframe and minicomputers as quickly as Intel improved performance for microprocessors. Really, Moore's law is a sort of management principle rather than any kind of physical law. Simply, Intel introduces new fabrication process technology at the pace which optimises their profits. Advance too slow and competitors will take the business, advance too fast and capital costs are higher, plus customers need payback on their current purchases. Advance at just the right pace and customers are motivated to replace perfectly good products just a few years old.
- pjscott 15y agoI predict that, two years from now, it will be mentioned 28 times. And so on, doubling every two years. I call this trend "Moore's Law," because all such trends are eventually mislabeled as Moore's Law.
- schmittz 15y agoAlthough not the link for this story, the fact that this story broke in the NYT (not that surprising), with an explanation to attempt transistor design and functionality (incredibly surprising) is really uplifting. A good piece of purely anecdotal evidence against those who claim America is in perpetual intellectual decline. The general populace IS interested enough to try to understand complex ideas.
- rbanffy 15y agoAfter watching the video I have to wonder: why not use the shrinking ray to reduce the transistors themselves?