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Intel to announce new chip technology

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CIOL Bureau
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NEW YORK : Intel Corp plans to unveil new technology for making computer chips on Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The move is part of the company's previously announced $12.5 billion investment over two years on manufacturing technology, and the company expects the process to yield the world's smallest transistors in large-scale production.



In its announcement, Intel was expected to describe some key elements of its 90-nanometer production process, a proprietary recipe that includes the materials, equipment and sequence of manufacturing steps needed to create chips of the new microscopic dimensions, the Journal said. The company says its new process can actually create transistors whose key features are just 50 nanometers, or 1/2,000th of the width of a human hair.



A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, and measures across a line of circuitry. Smaller circuitry on chips boosts their performance and reduces production costs. Intel will also announce plans to use a technology that effectively stretches the atoms apart in a silicon wafer to allow electrical current to flow faster, boosting computing performance, the paper reported.



International Business Machines Corp is credited with being the first company to adopt this "strained silicon" technique, but Intel expects to be the first to use it in massive production volumes. Besides shrinking the circuitry on their chips, the company is also seeking to combine multiple features such as memory and wireless networking on the same chip with microprocessors, making Intel a more credible contender in communications and other markets beyond personal computers.



The company also is moving, at two factories in Oregon and New Mexico, to 12-inch silicon wafers, up from the current industry standard of eight inches, which Intel expects to reduce production costs by at least 30 percent per chip.



© Reuters

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