Intel made plenty of waves this weekend when it took the wraps off the 45nm manufacturing process it will use to produce its next line of microprocessors. The chips, code-named "Penryn" will begin to arrive in the second half of the year, with dual-core notebook chips as well as dual- and quad-core desktop and server chips. Martyn Williams from IDG News Service has the lowdown (as well as some cool shots of Intel's latest fab) in this video report.
But it's the technology behind the chips that's truly impressive. Intel's 45nm chips will be the first consumer microprocessors to employ a high-k dielectric and metal gate transistors. This piece from Real World Technoliogies does a great job of unpacking exactly what that means, but if you're looking for the 50,000-foot view, here it is: With Core 2 Duo chips already, Intel has ensured that it will be able to keep shrinking its microprocessors and ramping up clock speed. As they said Friday, Moore's Law is intact. That's a nice club to have in their bag with AMD set to launch its new microprocessor design called "Barcelona" this summer.
