Intel announces new 22 nanometer Ivy Bridge processors with 3D transistors

Intel today announced a revolutionary innovation in microprocessor technology: three-dimensional transistors, called Tri-Gate. The advances in this new technique, which has been in development for ten years, will allow us to combine performance with energy and power efficiency from mobile gadgets to servers.

The first chips equipped with Tri-Gate transistors to be launched on the market on a large scale will compose the Ivy Bridge line, manufactured with a 22 nanometer process. Processors with this technology are, on average, 50% more efficient and 37% more powerful at low voltages, but the additional cost of using it is only around 3%.

There is still no right date for the arrival of the first Ivy Bridge processors, but they are expected to go into production in the second half and arrive at consumer products throughout 2012. If everything goes according to plan, chips made with 10 architecture nanometers should arrive around 2015.

With that, we will gain a few more years of validity for Moore's Law, which is fine.

(via Engadget)