Saying "transistors have entered the third dimension," Intel Senior Fellow Mark Bohr explained how until now most transistors have been on a plane, while the new version builds the channel that conduct electrons into the transistors up into the third dimension by using a new design that lets the chips be smaller and denser than it would have been otherwise. (For more details, see my post on the Tri-Gate technology.)
Bohr said this was the world's first demonstration of a 22nm microprocessor, and that this will be the first, high-volume chip to use 3D Tri-Gate transistors.
He said the new technology could have 10 times less leakage and could allow chips with this technology to operate at lower voltages, but have higher performance. He said that a normal shrink to 22nm would have created some performance advantage, but moving to the tri-gate technology at 22nm would allow for a 37 percent increase in transistor gate performance. Alternatively, you could run at the same performance at 0.2 volts less, and combined with better capacitance, it would allow the same performance at a 50 percent power reduction.
Bohr explained that this technology uses "fully depleted" transistors and showed pictures of the transistor with skinny "fins" that create the conducting channel for the electrons. He said that this design allows Intel to vary the number of "fins" (conducting channels) to allow different levels of transistor performance in different parts of the chip. He claimed this technology would only add 2 to 3 percent to the cost of manufacturing a silicon wafer.
Intel Executive VP Dadi Perlmutter held up a wafer that he said contained the 22nm chips and showed off a server, a desktop, and a notebook all running Ivy Bridge chips. On the desktop and mobile versions of the Ivy Bridge chips, he suggested the company would focus on low-power, high-performance chips with improved graphics and media performance. He said this technology would be entering the market next year, but the company would have more details at an analyst day in two weeks.
Later Perlmutter said users could expect both higher performance chips (although not necessarily with higher frequencies) and those with lower power consumption.
He said the technology would be used in chips ranging from data center chips to those aimed at phones and the embedded market. He promised that Atom chips based on the technology would follow the Ivy Bridge chips, but would allow for smaller, thinner devices with better performance.
When asked about overall performance vs. ARM chips, Perlmutter said the company was not releasing chip benchmarks, but said he believed Intel could compete well on all dimensions, including power consumption. While he said Atom would be behind Ivy Bridge at 22nm, he said Atom was on an "accelerated schedule" and could be manufactured on leading edge technology at about the same time as PC and server processors in the future.
Intel Senior VP for technology and manufacturing Bill Holt said that implementing this technology in its fab was comparable to other changes in materials and structures at other technology nodes.
Bohr added that the entire chip would use the Tri-Gate transistors, with no planar transistors. The technology builds on strained silicon and high-k/metal-gate technology Intel introduced in previous generations. Bohr said he thought Intel would be the only company to use this technology at 22nm, with other companies not likely to use non-planar transistors until 14nm, giving the company at least a three year head start.