Using new materials and a new manufacturing process, the two companies announced breakthroughs that would increase the speed and power of chips for another decade. This development will ensure that Moore's Law will thrive well into the next decade. Moore's Law is the name given to a prediction by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, who said in the 1960s that the number of transistors on a chip would double every two years.That prediction has proved to be an industry benchmark that has paved the way for faster, cheaper and more reliable computers, cell phones and other consumer electronics.
Intel will use a new material with a property called high-k for the transistor gate dielectric, and a new combination of metal materials for the transistor gate electrode. As per Intel the combination of the high-k gate dielectric with the metal gate for its 45nm process technology provides more than a 20% increase in drive current, or higher transistor performance. Conversely it reduces source-drain leakage by more than five times, thus improving the energy efficiency of the transistors.
The competing breakthroughs from Intel Corp. and IBM Corp. should silence doubts, at least for several years, that the industry can prolong the decades-long trend of pushing semiconductor performance while cutting size and cost.