Intel and IBM have announced one of the biggest advances in transistors in four decades, overcoming a frustruating obstacle by ensuring microchips can get even smaller and more powerful.
The breakthrough, achieved via separate research efforts and announced yesterday, involves using an exotic new material to make transistors - the tiny switches that are the building blocks of microchips.
The technology involves a layer of material that regulates the flow of electricity through transistors.
"At the transistor level, we haven't changed the basic materials since the 1960s. So it's a real big breakthrough," said Dan Hutcheson, head of VLSI Research, an industry consultancy.
"Moore's Law was coming to a grinding halt," he added, referring to the industry maxim laid down by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a chip doubles roughly every two years.
The result of Moore's Law has been smaller and faster chips and their spread into a wide array of consumer products that now account for the bulk of the industry's $250 billion in annual sales.
The latest breakthrough means Intel , IBM and others can proceed with technology roadmaps that call for the next generation of chips to be made with circuitry as small as 45 nanometers, about 1/2000th the width of a human hair.
Intel said it will use the technology, based on a silvery metal called hafnium, in new processors coming out later this year that the company hopes will give it a leg up on chips from rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
"We do expect that those products will deliver higher performance levels than existing products," said Steve Smith, vice president of Intel 's digital enterprise group operations. "What we're seeing is excellent double-digit performance gains on media applications."