East Fishkill (NY) - A chip alliance led by IBM expects semiconductors to bring a substantial boost in performance and a reduction in power consumption with the arrival of the 32 nm chip generation. The secret? High-K Metal Gate, a transistor technology that replaces polysilicon gate with a metal gate and the silicon-dioxide gate dielectric with a high-k dielectric.
IBM said that High-K will deliver up to 35% more performance or up to 45% less power (depending on operating voltage) over a 45 nm chip generation without High-K dielectric. Of course, these "up to" numbers are "either or" scenarios: 35% more performance will not yield 45% less power consumption: Actual mass-production chips are likely to show a compromise between more performance and less power.
Eagle-eyed readers may notice that AMD is not part of this announcement, despite the fact that the two companies are cooperating in chip manufacturing and the fact that AMD has been part of similar announcements in the past. Suspicious minds would speculate that AMD may have been excluded from this development, but IBM assured us that today’s announcement actually refers to IBM’s foundry alliance, which does not include AMD. However, AMD is part of IBM’s high performance SOI alliance, which includes AMD.
