Intel issued a press release, unveiling various advancements in the fields of packaging, transistor, and quantum physics. The company has stated that these new findings were made in pursuit of Moore’s Law.
According to Intel, these breakthroughs are going to be fundamental to advancing computing well into the upcoming years, going as far as beyond 2025.
The press release refers to Moore’s Law throughout, highlighting how important it is for Intel to stay on top of the rapid evolution of modern-day computing. Moore’s Law states, for the principle, that the performance of computers, including both the speed and the capability, can be expected to double once every two years. This happens as a result of various technological improvements, such as the increase in the number of transistors that can fit inside a microchip.
Intel made the announcement at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) 2021. In the press release, Intel talked at length about its three areas of pathfinding and the breakthroughs that prove it’s on track to continue following its roadmap through 2025 and beyond.
The company is focusing on several areas of research and reports significant progress in essential scaling technologies that will help it deliver more transistors in its future products. Intel’s engineers have been working on solutions to increase the interconnect density in chip packaging by at least 10 times.
Intel also mentioned that in July 2022, at the Intel Accelerated event, it plans to introduce Foveros Direct. This will provide an order of magnitude increase in the interconnect density for 3D stacking through enabling sub-10 micron bump pitches. The tech giant is calling for other manufacturers to work together in order to establish new industry standards and testing procedures, allowing for the creation of a new hybrid bonding chiplet ecosystem.
In the press release, Intel also refers to further advancing Moore’s Law through fitting more transistors per square millimeter, ultimately offering more computing power in the same-sized chip. This is to be done through stacking multiple CMOS transistors, which Intel promises would improve the logic scaling by anywhere between 30% and 50%.
The company has also promised that its breakthroughs will bring new capabilities to silicon. According to Intel, we can expect higher efficiency in terms of power technologies thanks to the integration of new power switches that operate on a Gallium Nitride-based (GaN) system. This is combined with a new CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) with a 300 mm wafer. Ultimately, Intel expects this to offer high-speed power delivery to its processors while improving power efficiency and space-saving on future motherboards.
In addition to the above, Intel is working on advancements in the field of DRAM technology. Through the use of new ferroelectric materials, Intel hopes to deliver faster read/write speeds and greater memory resources. This would address the ever-increasing demand for more powerful computing in many fields, from gaming to artificial intelligence.
During IEDM 2021, Intel has unveiled a world first: A magnetoelectric spin-orbit logic device at room temperature. This is a step toward manufacturing a brand-new type of transistor based on switching nanoscale magnets. Intel has teamed up with IMEC to research spintronic materials and advance this technology further.
The full press release was shared by, among others, TechPowerUp. It seems like Intel is not resting on its laurels. After the successful release of new Intel Alder Lake processors, the manufacturer has big plans for 2022, including a new line of discrete graphics cards. However, the press release indicates much bigger plans that go far beyond the next few years, bringing new advancements to various areas of computing.
