On Saturday, Intel unveiled a series of chips built with its latest 45nm technology process using a new material combination of high-k gate dielectrics and metal gates. Both technologies will enable Intel to build smaller and faster transistors (at the heart of every computer chips) while substantially reducing "leakage" by 10 times! The smaller they get, the more transistors "leak" current, responsible for higher power consumption and increase heat dissipation. During a media pre-brief last Thursday at Intel's headqarters in Santa Clara, we saw several "noisy" machines using 45nm parts running Linux and Windows. Intel claims MacOS also works on the new chips but can't show the machines without Apple's consent :)

During the pre-brief, we asked Intel's senior fellow Mark Bohr about the importance of Intel’s 45nm developments. According to Bohr, Intel has over 2 years lead over anybody else in the industry (IBM will ship their first 45nm sometime next year) and is now working on the 32nm process that will probably use the immersion lithography technique versus the current 193nm dry lithography. "They have not demonstrated large arrays or even transistors that can even match our 65nm transistor performance!", said Bohr.