Intel's Ivy Bridge chips launch using ‘3D transistors’
Intel's new Ivy Bridge processors use a new tri-gate transistor technology to boost processing power while reducing the amount of energy needed — Intel is launching its Ivy Bridge family of processors - the first to feature what it describes as a “3D transistor”.
Context & Ripple Effects
Intel had framed three-dimensional transistor structures as its next manufacturing step in 2011, following its earlier transistor-design work aimed at extending Moore’s Law. Ivy Bridge turns that plan into a shipping processor family, while Intel is also pursuing Atom designs for phones and tablets.
First-order effects
- Intel differentiates Ivy Bridge with tri-gate transistors designed to raise processing performance while lowering energy use.
- Reviewers assessing Ivy Bridge-based Core i7 systems gain a concrete new architecture to benchmark, rather than a future manufacturing claim.
Second-order effects
- Intel can use the performance-per-energy message across its broader push into mobile computing, where its Atom-based smartphone and tablet efforts make power consumption a strategic selling point.
- Competing processor vendors face a higher bar on the combined performance-and-power proposition as Intel brings 3D transistor technology into a commercial family.
Third-order effects
- The launch tests whether moving transistor design into the third dimension can sustain the performance and energy gains Intel had associated with extending Moore’s Law.
- If tri-gate manufacturing scales across Intel’s product lines, process technology becomes an even more central source of differentiation between chip platforms.
The trend: Chipmakers are seeking performance gains increasingly through transistor-structure changes that also reduce energy use, not simply through conventional scaling.