|
Moore's Law is more of an industry benchmark to determine if the industry is still innovating.
What makes that chip possible is high-K dielectric that Intel took a great risk on in Jan 2006. Hafnium (with some other secret materials) made it possible to replace glass (silicon dioxide) with a gate material that does not leak so many electrons. Less leakage means less power consumption and less heat. This risk and its resulting rewards have left AMD in trouble both financially and in competitive products. AMD is suffering from processors that are either too hot or too slow. The buzz word for this new Intel technology is 45 nm transistors. AMD is just getting to 65 nm transistors.
Intel produces annually more transistors than there are stars in the universe.
Meanwhile, the next generation of processing is multicore. But as Sony's Playstation Three demonstrates, we have a serious problem making software that can utilize multicore processors. Where would be a good place to invest? Who can solve this software problem now that Intel has solved the Moore Law challenge using multicore processors?
|