Other firms are also working on chips with 45nm features
The chip industry's unrelenting quest to build smaller, faster microchips has taken another step forward.
Chip-maker Intel has launched a range of processors, known as Penryn, which will power the next generation of PCs.
The tiny chips contain a novel material and have features just 45 nanometres (billionths of a metre) wide.
The only PC processor in the line-up of 16 chips packs 820 million of the tiny switches into an area little bigger than a postage stamp.
"Had we used the same transistors that we used in our chips 15 to 20 years ago, the chip would be about the size of a two-storey building," said Bill Kircos of Intel.
Paul Otellini, head of Intel, described the challenge of building the chips as "awe-inspiring".
The current generation of microprocessors use transistors with features 65 nanometres wide.
Although the chip-maker is the first company to make microprocessors with such tiny features, other companies, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), are producing other types of silicon chip.
"We have 45nm designs in production," said Chuck Byers of the firm.
TSMC manufactures chips on behalf of other companies.
The launch of the new multi-core chips comes nearly 60 years after the transistor was invented.
The brainchild of three scientists working at the research labs of the US Bell System telephone company, the tiny switches have gone on to underpin the silicon age.
HOW A PROCESSOR WORKS
Basic operations flow through many
areas of the chip and follow a three-
step process. Fetch retrieves an
instruction from the PCs memory.
Decode decides what the instruction
means. Execute carries it out.
This instruction cycle can be done
millions of times every second. Even
simple operations can involve hundreds
The following is a simplified
version of the calculation 2+3.
1. When the user presses the "2" key
data is routed to the chip.
2. Microprocessors and PCs use binary,
a numeric system of "1s" and "0s".
The binary code for 2 -10 - is stored in
1.The process is repeated when the “3”
key is pressed.
The binary code for 3 is 11.
It is again stored in the cache.
In reality, hundreds of commands
have been processed at this stage.
1. Pressing the "+" retrieves
instructions from the main memory.
2. The Arithmetic Logic Unit - a set of
circuits dedicated to calculations -
adds the numbers.
3. The result - 5 (101) is stored.
1. The "=" key is pressed and the chip
retrieves the answer from the registers.
2. Where it was stored. Many more
hundreds of operations are done by
other circuitry before the result is
displayed on the screen.