Intel plans to roll out its newest generation of processors today.
The world's largest semiconductor company expects to start shipping 16 new microprocessors that cram up to 40 per cent more transistors and boast inventive new materials to staunch electricity loss.
The most complex chips being announced today have 820 million transistors, compared with the 582 million transistors on the same chips built using the current standard technology.
Intel's first chips, introduced in the early 1970s, had just 2,300 transistors.
Advances in chip technology occur as smaller and smaller lines are etched onto the chips. Intel's new chips shrink the width of those lines to an average of 45 nanometres, or 45 billionths of a metre, compared to 65 nanometres on the previous generation of chips.
The smaller circuitry allows Intel to squeeze more transistors - the building blocks of computer chips - onto the same slice of silicon. That accelerates performance and drives down manufacturing costs.
Intel, which plans to spend up to $8 billion on upgrading or building factories for the 45-nanometre chips, is at least six months ahead of smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices in moving to the new technology.