Intel Makes 45nm Chip

dolphinlover writes "Intel announced today that it created its first microchip using the 45 nanometer manufacturing process that it says will go into its processors in the second half of 2007. Intel said that this development provides it with a 'considerable lead over our competitors in the 45-nanometer generation'."

Comments

Re:Says You

[georgewilliamherbert]

Unlike other fields, production ramps in semiconductor manufacturing are pretty easy to spot... the amount of new machinery and construction associated with a new process being deployed to a facility are hard to hide, and it's all over the trade press 18 months before stuff starts shipping typically.

AMD has traditionally been behind Intel on the bleeding edge fab stuff. Intel's dominated the fab tech race by six months or so for years and years. That is not changing here, as far as anyone I know of can see. AMD using SOI sort of blurs the line here, but in terms of process shrinks and the like Intel's ahead.

AMD's chips being better performers despite being behind some in chip fab is an important feature. But roadmaps based on imaginary pixie dust, in an industry where fabs cost $4 billion or so, are a waste of time even on slashdot.

Doing the hard work

[ranton]

It seams to make sense that because Intel has the most money, that they can spend money on developing better manufacturing and engineering techniques than their competition. But with all of this extra money, and seamingly having better technological capabilities, AMD is still beating out Intel as far as performance.

Looks like Intel basically does all of the hard work figuring out how to do things for the first time, and AMD just has to wait until Intel is finished and then just learn from them. I of course know nothing about how to make processors, but it seams that this is the most plausible reason why Intel has trouble making chips that are as good as AMD.

This news about the 45nm manufacturing looks very bad for AMD, but I doubt it will matter very much. If Intel is doing it by the end of 2007, AMD will probably be doing it by first or second quarter 2008. And if history is any indicator, they will probably be doing it better. But I guess time will tell, maybe this 45nm technique really is too hard for a company without endless money to figure out.
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