Intel paves way for 'Terahertz'
ZDNet | at | by Mike
Transistors, the microscopic circuits that animate semiconductors, are going to be flipping off and on a trillion times a second in a few years, a prospect that is forcing Intel back to the drawing board. In a presentation at the International Electron Devices meeting this week in Washington, D.C., the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip giant will shed light on a series of major changes coming to the design of its transistors--culminating in the "Terahertz" transistor in the second half of the decade--that ideally will keep a lid on the growing problem of power consumption.
Overall, the pending chemical and architectural changes will let Intel by 2007 manufacture chips that contain a billion transistors but consume about the same amount of power as today's processors.