Intel Corporation on Dec.
16 celebrates the 60th anniversary of the
transistor, the building block of today's digital world. Invented by Bell
Labs and considered one of the most important inventions of the 20th
century, transistors are found in many consumer electronics and are the
fundamental component used to build computer chips, or the "brains" of the
personal computer (PC).
Intel, the world's largest manufacturer of computer chips, has recently
introduced its 45 nanometer (nm) next-generation family of quad-core
processors. Called the
biggest transistor advancement in 40 years by Intel Co-Founder Gordon
Moore, the processors are the first to use Intel's Hafnium-based high-k
metal gate (Hi-k) formula for the hundreds of millions of transistors
inside these processors. Introduced on Nov. 12 and continuing into the next
few months, this latest innovation is enabling servers, everyday PCs and
laptops to become smaller, faster, sleeker and more energy-efficient while
also eliminating eco-unfriendly lead and, in 2008, halogen materials.
Guided by Moore's Law
On April 19, 1965, Electronics Magazine published a paper by Moore in
which he made a prediction about the semiconductor industry that has become
the stuff of legend. Known as Moore's Law, his
prediction states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles about
every 2 years, enabling widespread proliferation of technology worldwide,
and today it has become shorthand for rapid technological change.
Moore's Law not only predicts that computing technology will increase
in value but at the same time would actually decrease in cost. The price of
a transistor in Intel's newest chip family is about 1 millionth the average
price of a transistor in 1968. If car prices had fallen at the same rate, a
new car today would cost about one cent.
With its transistors turning on and off more than a trillion times per
second, the Intel(R) Core(TM) Duo processor can complete close to a billion
calculations in the blink of an eye or finish 4 million calculations in the
time it takes a speeding bullet to travel one inch.(1) And the average
power of an Intel Core Duo processor is less than 1.1 watts, which is
significantly less than many familiar household appliances, such as a 100W
light bulb.
Smaller and faster chips made possible by Intel's technology
advancements benefit consumers' lives by enabling improved performance,
longer battery life, and sleeker, quieter and more energy-efficient PCs and
laptops. If engineers continue Moore's Law and succeed in continuing to
reduce the size of the transistor while increasing the speed, the world
could expect amazing new innovations and applications such as real-time
language translation and facial recognition, as well as enabling cars that
take verbal commands to a destination.
Intel
Intel, the world leader in silicon innovation, develops technologies,
products and initiatives to continually advance how people work and live.
* Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the
U.S. and other countries.
** 45nm product is manufactured on a lead-free process. Lead-free per EU
RoHS directive July 2006. Some E.U. RoHS exemptions may apply to
other components used in the product package.
*** Residual amounts of halogens are below November 2007 proposed
IPC/JEDEC J-STD-709 standards.
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