Intel Unveils 90 nm Process

摘要

In August, Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.) officially took the wraps off its new 90 nm process, which it says it will put into volume manufacturing next year using 300 mm wafers. The new process combines higher-performance, lower-power transistors, strained silicon, copper interconnects and a carbon-doped low-k dielectric material. Intel says this is the first time all of these technologies will be integrated into a single manufacturing process. "While some are slowly transitioning production to 130 nm (0.13 μm) process on 200 mm wafers, we are moving ahead with the most advanced 90 nm technology exclusively on 300 mm wafers," said Sunlin Chou, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Technology and Manufacturing Group. The new 90 nm process will feature transistors with a 50 nm gate length (Figure). By comparison, the transistors in Intel's Pentium 4 processors measure 60 nm. The transistors feature gate oxides that are only five atom-ic layers thick (1.2 nm).