Strained Silicon Chips From Intel

Quirk writes "NewScientist is reporting... "Intel has taken the wraps off a secret technique it is using'Strained silicon' chips to increase the speed of its Pentium and Centrino chips. The technique boosts the rate at which transistors switch, without having to make them smaller.""

Re:Since when is Strained Silicon Secret?

[cmacb]

I bet what the article MEANT to say was that they took the wraps off the fact that they are using this process. The secret being not the process but their use of it. Especially since they credit a university researcher with the concept back in 1992.

Yet another reminder for naysayers...

[Amiga Lover]

...who claim we're coming to the limits of silicon, and XXXX MHz is the highest that can be achieved. Technology will keep on advancing relentlessly, changing and adapting.

Pick an absolute limit for the speed of a CPU... then proceed to completely ignore it. Can't go wrong there.

Re:fanboys are funny

[obeythefist]

And the Intel fanboys make fun of the AMD fanboys? Very mature.

Intel and AMD both have a variety of technologies available to them, sometimes uniquely, sometimes shared or licensed.

Currently AMD holds the speed crown with the hammer series of chips. Before that, intel held the speed crown when the P4 series ramped up to the very high clockspeeds it was capable of. Before that, AMD held the speed crown when it beat intel soundly to 1GHz. Before that, intel was everything.

When you consider that now, AMD seems to be a low-end commodity CPU technology leader (first to get 64bit on the desktop and all), and intel have changed their plans by announcing work on an x86-64 CPU, but intel by far has a huge installed base and the same entrenched loyalty in consumers that Bill Gates enjoys (They are the biggest, most expensive company so their product is more reliable FUD).

I'm interested in seeing who will win out - the larger company with the market share (but less innovative product), or the innovator with a cheaper, more powerful product. I think intel will win, after observing the linux/windows market competition.

Re:Way behind competitors still

[DAldredge]

It costs around 1.5 - 2.75 BILLION USD for a new chip fab. Intel isn't about to throw that away, they will just buy one of the smaller companies when/if the perfect this tech.

Won't happen

[ArchieBunker]

Anything P4 and later has the built in temp sensor that slows down the cpu if it overheats. If your cpu is getting so hot that its melting silicon then you have bigger problems to deal with. The tomshardware video still gives me a chuckle when the AMD chip goes *poof* and smokes without a heatsink. Trying to save a few cents I suppose.

Re:Way behind competitors still

[fullofangst]

Man made diamonds have much less problems handling heat and Intel is ignoring this while their competitors are on the fast track
I'd wager they aren't ignoring it at all. Rather, Intel will be keeping any progress on such a jump in technology very, very closely guarded to their chest.

Re:fanboys are funny

[oconnorcjo]

I'm interested in seeing who will win out - the larger company with the market share (but less innovative product), or the innovator with a cheaper, more powerful product. I think intel will win, after observing the linux/windows market competition.

If Linux could run all the programs that MS does, I would say your logic made some sense but the fact is that linux is "johny come lately" when 90% of the desktop was already tied to MS. Linux can't run everything that MS does and it is not realistic for most people to switch all software and everything they know to something completely new. That arguement does not hold true for the AMD/Intel market. What runs on Intel will run just as well on AMD with no change in user experience (often without any knowledge of what chip they are using).

Re:100 billion dollar chip market!

[MegaHamsterX]

Then consider how much these chip fabs cost, last I read they were several billion dollars, so if the market is 100billion I don't know how this can really continue much further economicly.

Scientists, Engineers, Accountants, Lawyers, The Blue Man Group, you start to wonder how there is any room left for profit.

Re:fanboys are funny

[ProtonMotiveForce]

Some factual mistakes in your post.

1. I don't recall Intel announcing anything about any x86-64 CPU.
2. Intel's products are more reliable, as they spend a _lot_ more time testing and qualifying their products than any other manufacturer.

Re:Yet another reminder for naysayers...

[Waffle Iron]

..who claim we're coming to the limits of silicon, and XXXX MHz is the highest that can be achieved. Technology will keep on advancing relentlessly, changing and adapting.

While technology could keep advancing for quite some time, that doesn't mean that advances will be economically feasible.

Take aircraft development, for example. The maximum speed advanced on a roughly exponential scale from 1903 through the mid 60s, culminating with an X-15 flight at around mach 6. Even today, researchers are tinkering around with models of aircraft faster than that. However, 99.99% of all passengers and cargo still move at the speed they did in 1960: about 500 mph. Why is this? Because fuel consumption and noise problems make it uneconomical to go faster than a 707. For air travel, every day reality has become decoupled from technological possiblity.

Likewise, CPU performance will almost certainly hit a wall where the power consumption makes it impractical for the average user to run more MIPS. Processor technology will continue to advance, but only for applications where power consumption is no object.

The problem is that when you can no longer target CPUs at the mass market, the potential revenue shrinks, so investment money dries up, slowing the development cycle. (This is a big part of the reason why 40 years after the X-15 and SR-71 we haven't come up with anything faster.) This will be the factor that ends exponential silicon CPU performance increases, even if there is no fundamental physical roadblock to producing faster processors.

Re:Yet another reminder for naysayers...

[John Courtland]

Or we'll get to the point where our processors contain cells, and each cell can be doled out "work units" to handle. Mass a bunch and you can complete more "work units" faster. Each "work unit" would probably be a thread, so that data could be collaborated easily. Maybe our programming models in the future wil be so totally different that processor design as we know it will be like looking at the horse and buggy today.