The Penryn Drops on Monday

[GatsbyDyt]

I was just doing some random browsing when i found this:

Nov. 9, 2007 (Investor's Business Daily delivered by Newstex) --

The march of the Penryns is getting under way.

On Monday, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) INTC will roll out a new line of computer processors, code-named Penryn, made with new 45-nanometer circuitry that cuts power use and boosts performance.

With the new transistor design, combined with a new 45-nanometer manufacturing process, Intel can make cheaper, more powerful processors. And that could mean lower price tags for consumers next year on personal computers, servers and a host of electronic goods.

"Clearly, it allows them to forge ahead in the power race," said American Technology Research analyst Doug Freedman.

Intel plans to roll out 15 new chips using the Penryn design by the end of this year and another 15 to 20 in the first quarter of 2008. The company plans to release pricing and model names Monday.

Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini is counting on Penryn to keep Intel a step ahead of archrival Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD) AMD, the No. 2 computer chipmaker behind Intel.

The move is part of a "tick-tock" strategy Intel adopted a couple of years ago. It plans to launch new chipmaking processes and new chip designs in a regular alternating-year cycle.

This year, Intel is rolling out the "tick" -- its 45-nanometer manufacturing process -- with Penryn as the first chip built on that process.

The first Penryn-based products will be high-end desktop processors and server chips. Later, Intel will unveil versions for notebook PCs, Otellini said at the Intel Developer Forum last September.

He touted 750 computer system designs customers are building around the Penryn family.

"You can count on us to deliver the products you need," he said.

Next year will be the "tock" part of the cycle: a new, more advanced design, code-named Nehalem.

Thin Is In

Penryn is Intel's first computer processor made from wiring 45 nanometers thick, 30% thinner than today's 65-nanometer circuitry. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.

The thinner the silicon "wiring," the more transistors chip designers can fit into a given surface area; the more transistors, the better the chip's number-crunching prowess.

Others, including IBM (NYSE:IBM) IBM, are also in the process of implementing 45-nanometer manufacturing. But Intel officials call their Penryn design the biggest advance in transistors in 40 years.

Penryn uses hafnium, a material not previously used in chips, as an insulator to help minimize electricity "leakage" that occurs when power jumps off of the metal path on a circuit. That has become a growing problem as chip circuitry gets smaller.

Until now, Intel and other chipmakers have used a material called silicon dioxide -- the "silicon" in Silicon Valley -- as an insulator.

Jefferies & Co. analyst John Lau says Intel's hafnium transistors are a breakthrough. Just how much of a breakthrough remains to be seen, he says.

"As the (chip features) get smaller and smaller, these advances are critical to making sure they can make these with lower power use," Lau said. "History will determine its place."

End Of Moore's Law?

Lower power usage is a key feature of today's computer processors. Industry officials say that Moore's Law, named after Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, will likely end, possibly as soon as a decade from now.

Moore coined the term in the mid-1960s, noting that by shrinking a chip's features, chipmakers could roughly double the number of transistors they put on computer chips every 18 months to two years.

But as chip circuitry shrinks ever closer to atomic-scale thickness, the laws of physics hinder further progress. Electricity becomes unstable at the nanotech level.

Hafnium transistors should keep electricity flowing smoothly through chips for the foreseeable future.