Intel Describes Peculiarities of 32nm Process Technology

From X-bit Labs: Intel Corp. on Tuesday revealed more details regarding its 32nm process technology that will allow the company to build high-performance and, from some point of view, revolutionary processors. Intel believes that yield rates of the new fabrication process will be very high and combined with reduced leakage and other improvements will further improve Intel’s products and manufacturing efficiencies.

The foundation of Intel’s 32nm process technology is the second generation high-k + metal gate transistor. The improvements over the first generation’s high-k + metal gate transistors are many. The equivalent oxide thickness of the high-k dielectric has been reduced from 1.0nm on 45nm to 0.9nm on the 32nm process while gate length as been reduced to 30nm. Transistor gate pitch continues to scale 0.7x every two years - with 32nm providing the tightest gate pitch in the industry.

The company’s 32nm also uses the same basic replacement metal gate process flow as Intel’ 45nm process technology enabling Intel to leverage an existing highly successful process. These improvements are critical for scaling the size of ICs and increasing transistor performance. Intel claims that its 32nm P1268 (for central processing units) and P1269 (for system-on-chip) process technologies with second generation high-k + metal gate transistors enable designers to optimize for both size and performance simultaneously.

The decreased oxide thickness and reduced gate length enables a more 22% transistor performance gain. These transistors provide the highest drive currents and tightest gate pitch reported in the industry. Leakage current can also be optimized for a >5x reduction in leakage over 45nm for NMOS transistors, and over ten times reduction in leakage for PMOS transistors. These improvements combine to enable circuits to be designed that are both smaller and have improved performance/power. 32nm is also 4th generation of strained silicon technology for improved transistor performance – so Intel has had time and opportunity to make vast improvements.

View: Article @ Source Site