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Intel predicts Moore's Law to apply down to 7nm

by Mark Tyson on 23 February 2015, 12:04

Tags: Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)

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There is still headroom for Moore's law to apply to chip design/manufacture for the next few years according to Intel scientists. At the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco this week Intel will discuss the challenges it faces in manufacturing ever faster and more efficient chips, expected to be made with 10nm process technology in the near future.

Intel senior fellow Mark Bohr engaged in a conference call with reporters discussing the upcoming Intel ISSCC presentations. Bohr said that current processor making technology can be used to make ever-finer-scale chips from the 14nm processors we have today, down to smaller processes in the future. However looking further down the line new "expensive, esoteric manufacturing methods like ultraviolet lasers," might be required to follow Moore's Law, reports PC World.

Mark Bohr

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Moore's Law, which is a computer industry observation that says "the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years". Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore described the trend for the first time in 1965. The process shrinks, described in nm scales above, are vital to maintain Moore's Law without any other radical change in computer chip making technology.

Intel's Bohr took the time during his conference call to explain the manufacturing delay of the 14nm Broadwell chips. He said that the firm underestimated the time needed to complete the tasks required to ready the chips. Then it took longer to "fix the yields," but he noted that Intel is now enjoying high yields. Furthermore you might be happy to hear that the 10nm process pilot is on track, and going about 50 per cent faster than 14nm development did.

Faster processing is required for this kind of thing, thinks Intel



HEXUS Forums :: 12 Comments

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Every time they predict Moores coming to an end, it continues :)

Very funny considering it was a “finger in the air” idea to begin with.

Maybe we will see stacked CPUs next, that'll keep it going for a while……
So Intel when are you going to show working 10nm chips? even just SRAM prototypes?

16/14nm prototypes were first shown off in 2009 with retail chips in 2014.

Yet when ever Intel's investors bring up 10nm at investment meetings Intel's all talk and no show.
I'm wondering is there a physical reason it cannot get smaller? Nanometer has been the measurement for a while now and seeing as we have been closing in one the smallest full number, is it theoretically possible for there to be pico or femtometer lithography in the future?
The size of an atom is at least 0.1nm, so I guess in theory that's as small as you could go?
Indeed. You definitely can't make transistors out of less than one silicon atom…