Intel, IBM Announce Chip Breakthrough

Intel announced a major breakthrough in microprocessor design Friday that will allow it to keep on the curve of Moore's Law a while longer. IBM, working with AMD, rushed out a press release announcing essentially equivalent advances. Both companies said they will be using alloys of hafnium as insulating layers, replacing the silicon dioxide that has been used for more than 40 years. The New York Times story (and coverage from the AP and others) features he-said, she-said commentary from dueling analysts. If there is a consensus, it's that Intel is 6 or more months ahead for the next generation. IBM vigorously disputes this, saying that they and AMD are simply working in a different part of the processor market — concentrating on the high-end server space, as opposed to the portable, low-power end.

Comments

Two breakthroughs in one day?

[zero-one]

With this breakthrough and that other one perhaps Moore's Law needs updating.

Axiom?

[rumith]

The Intel announcement is new evidence that the chip maker is maintaining the pace of Moore's Law, the technology axiom

I thought it's an empiric law; the definition of axiom is quite different from that.

Intel said it had already manufactured prototype microprocessor chips in the new 45-nanometer process that run on three major operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Again, I thought it's the operating systems who run on microprocessors, not vice-versa. And I [not being a kernel developer, though] can't see any reason for an OS to stop functioning on a new processor model if the architecture is intact and no serious hardware-level bugs are introduced.