Platform Trends: Intel Drives for 45 (Nanometers)

If Intel Corp. has one glaring advantage over its rival AMD, it's in the area of semiconductor fabrication and manufacturing. The sheer resources (and capital) Intel has its disposal are incredible, and even in the times when the chip giant fell behind in desktop CPU performance, it was constantly pushing the envelope with smaller processor die sizes and improved wafer yields.

Intel made the transition to 130-, then 90-, and now 65-nanometer process engineering well ahead of AMD, and that helped the company through some very tough times. Now, with the 65nm Core 2 series riding high at the top of the performance charts, Intel has released a preview of its next-generation 45-nanometer process.

It's Not the Die Size, It's What You Do With It

The move to 45nm fabrication sounds like a sure thing, but challenges grow bigger as transistors grow smaller. One example is current leakage, which results in excess current off the transistor gate and hence greater power consumption and heat, problems that have really come to the fore as manufacturing processes shrink. Both the transistor gate and gate oxide are areas of serious concern, as they continue to get thinner and more susceptible to leakage in proportion to shrinking processor cores.

Intel's new solution is to replace the polysilicon gate and silica gate oxide with a more efficient metal gate and a high-k gate oxide -- an insulator more resistant to the passage or leakage of current, just the opposite of the low-k materials we used to hear about in discussions of quicker current flow for faster CPU performance.

This may sound important only to science wizards, but the advantages are clear: Intel's next processors will offer higher performance at the same clock speeds as today's; more headroom for clock speed increases; and lower power requirements, which means decreased heat production and quieter system cooling fans. And not only is the "smaller, faster, cooler" hat trick a boon to PC makers, but it makes Intel a leaner and meaner company, with a 45nm production fab delivering higher chip yields per 300mm wafer and lower costs.

One of the main benefits of a smaller process technology is the ability to fit more transistors into the same physical die size. Perhaps the biggest real-estate offender these days is Level 2 cache, which takes up a significant portion of any high-end processor core. The 45nm shrink will let Intel increase and possibly even double L2 cache levels, yielding higher performance, better scalability, and the potential for eight-core designs.

Today's top Core 2 Duo models have 4MB of shared L2 cache; a Core 2 Quad doubles that to 8MB. So a theoretical Core 2, um, Octo would need at least 16MB to maintain current performance levels. And that's not even talking about on-chip Level 3 cache.

Intel Ramps Up for Penryn

On first hearing about the new 45-nanometer process, it would have been easy to file it away with some other Intel prognostications -- remember "30-nanometer transistors by 2005"? -- except for one small detail: Intel's 45nm future is right around the corner. The company is currently developing its 45nm process on 300mm wafers in its D1D fab in Hillsboro, Oregon.

In order to fill demand, two additional 45nm fabs are being constructed, and CPU production is scheduled to start by the middle of 2007. To be sure, there's gossip that volume distribution may not come until early 2008, but this is definitely not a paper launch. Intel has already produced 300mm wafers using 45nm process engineering, and has demonstrated 45-nanometer chips working in a real-world environment.

Intel is chomping at the bit to get on with the 45-nanometer revolution, and the next Core 2 Duo core -- codenamed "Penryn" -- will be the first product to take advantage of the smaller manufacturing process. As the next evolution of today's "Conroe," it will offer larger L2 cache sizes (rumored to be 3MB to 6MB), reduced power and heat specifications, and some new SSE4 multimedia instructions.

Since Intel already holds an advantage in the desktop arena, the 45nm Penryn will likely waste no time finding its way into portable systems, where its lower battery drain and higher performance will really make an impact. The new core will find its way into desktop and server CPUs later, perhaps with Intel finding room to add some goodies such as an integrated graphics controller or physics engine.

AMD: No Shrinking Violet

Obviously, this week's announcement was Intel's way of reminding the industry that it's in the driver's seat, and has the multibillon-dollar budget to stay there. AMD and its manufacturing partner IBM issued a counter-announcement about innovative 45nm technology of their own due in 2008, but historically AMD's best success has come by offering more efficient core designs that rival the power and heat conservation of physically smaller Intel chips.

Intel was the first to shrink from 180nm to 130nm process engineering with the Pentium III, but AMD's Athlon held its own. When Intel advanced to 90 nanometers with the Pentium 4 "Prescott," the 130nm Athlon 64 continued to enjoy strong performance and sales. Its initial foray into 65-nanometer territory didn't turn out much better for Intel, as the Pentium D 900-series disappointed in terms of both performance and thermals.

Of course, Conroe changed all that, but it wasn't until Intel combined its 65nm engineering with a killer microarchitecture that it regained CPU supremacy. The prospect of an even smaller, faster, and cooler Core 2 may not quite be AMD's worst nightmare, but -- at least until the latter's native quad-core K8L shows up -- it sure looks as if Intel aims to use its inherent advantages to build a lead that no one can overcome.