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It will be interesting to see whether patents will make this a defensible innovation. Will AMD et all have to invent a similar but materially different technology in order to keep pace?
Considering Intel first announced the Tri-Gate tech in 2002 AMD would have to had been working on something for 9 years to be launching a competitor anytime soon.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The number of things of a given size you can fit on a plane within distance R of you is proportional to R^2. The number of things you can fit in a three dimensional space is R^3. So as we utilize 3D more and more things will tend to be closer together.
They're closer together, but the distance traveled in total is the same. Imagine the transistors are pieces of paper, and you're drawing a line over them. If the paper is flat, then you're drawing a line of distance n , and the points are n apart. If you fold the ends of the paper together, then the points are 0 units apart (or near enough to make no matter), but that line still has a distance of n .
Anyone know if the 3D structure is patented by Intel? If so, wouldn't this give Intel a monopoly on transistors given how much better this new design performs?
Intel will likely not patent or reveal the manufacturing method thats how most semiconductor manufacturing technologies go. They tend to be trade secrets that are a combination of process and machinery which your competitors are unlikely to ever reproduce exactly, so no point in patenting it.
Anyone know if the 3D structure is patented by Intel? If so, wouldn't this give Intel a monopoly on transistors given how much better this new design performs?
I think this will mostly help increase the life expectancy of the Moore's Law by another 10 years or so. When we'll get to 11nm or whatever is the limit, we'll just start stacking layers of transistors on each other. That will only work until the chips become too thick, though.
Below 10nm, Intel and other fabricators will start looking beyond CMOS, perhaps to carbon based structures.
Will this allow them to increase clock speeds? They mention a 37% perf increase, but I don't know what exactly they mean by that.
I often wonder at the incredibly small size of these chips (22nm) if the have to worry about relativistic effects of electrons "jumping".
Thats how transistors work in general, but the problem is you get small enough and its like the transistors want to turn them-selfs on, luckily the smaller you go the more leakage you get into other areas of the chip so those extra electrons just get seeped into there and ground out which mostly causes you to pull more power per square area.
You real issue is if those "jumping" electrons get wedged into corners near gates, then they can leave a transistor on permanently. But that's all part of the chip design process to avoid that kind of thing.
sometimes i feel like intel should space out their chips more. as a consumer i feel like i can't keep up.
Why do you need to keep up?
This is the sort of thing I read and think to myself "go check HN comments where someone smart will explain this in layman's terms"