This year’s International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) saw Intel submit multiple research papers outlining their plans to investigate novel 2D transistor materials and 3D packaging options. The new information supports Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger’s previous claims on forthcoming microarchitecture design advancements. Moore’s Law will be alive and well for the foreseeable future, according to Intel’s Gary Patton.
Earlier this year, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang pronounced Moore’s Law dead during a Q&A session for the 4000-series launch. Similar predictions were made by Huang during the 2017 Beijing GPU Technology Conference. And, like in the past, Intel isn’t buying what Nvidia’s leather leader is selling.
The company’s 2023 IEDM research submissions include a number of techniques, materials, and technologies that could help the semiconductor behemoth back up past claims of delivering chiplet-based trillion transistor CPUs by 2030.
Intel’s new transistor and packaging research focuses on improving CPU speed and efficiency, bridging the gap between classic single-die CPUs and innovative chiplet-based designs.
Some of the innovations mentioned in the submitted documents include considerably reduced gaps between chiplets to boost performance, transistors that can maintain their state even when power is lost, and new stacking memory solutions.
Gary Patton, Intel’s vice president and general manager of Components Research (CR) and Design Enablement, said that “seventy-five years since the invention of the transistor, innovation driving Moore’s Law continues to address the world’s exponentially increasing demand for computing. At IEDM 2022, Intel is showcasing both the forward-thinking and concrete research advancements needed to break through current and future barriers, deliver to this insatiable demand, and keep Moore’s Law alive and well for years to come.”
The CR group’s research has uncovered new techniques and materials that will help the corporation reach the trillion-transistor mark. The latest hybrid bonding study from the company is a tenfold improvement over the previous year’s presentation. Other research highlighted in Intel’s submissions includes designs that use novel materials with thicknesses of no more than three atoms, memory that can be placed vertically above transistors, and a better understanding of interface defects that can negatively impact quantum data storage and retrieval.
Intel’s Components Research Group is the company’s internal leader for innovative technology development. CR engineers create novel materials and technologies to aid semiconductor producers in their continual battle to downsize technology to the atomic scale. The group is in charge of Intel’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) technology, which has helped the company continue to lower node sizes while enhancing overall semiconductor capabilities. The work and timelines of the group are typically five to ten years ahead of commercially accessible technologies.
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