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Wow, this is pretty freaking cool news. This will definitely make a pretty big leap in efficiency and speed for Intel products. Damn, I was really hoping Bulldozer would leap ahead of Intel, but this could give Intel the advantage.Equipped with a three-sided gate – the portion of a transistor used to control current – the Tri-Gate provides 50 per cent less power consumption than existing planar transistors as well as "unprecedented" performance gains, according to Intel. Chipzilla boasts that this is the world's first 3D transistor
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A transistor consists of three basic components: a source, a gate, and a drain. When a voltage is applied to the gate, electrons flow from the source to the drain, turning the transistor "on". When a different voltage applied, current between source and drain stopped, turning the transistor off.
You can imagine the source and drain as two ends of a square pipe through which electrons flow. Existing transistors are "planar". The gate, which controls the flow of electrons, sits atop the pipe, touching it on only one surface. The Tri-Gate is nonplanar. The gate wraps around the pipe, touching not only the top plane of the pipe but the two sides as well. Unlike with planar transistors, electrons can flow across three planes, moving significantly more current through the transistor than would be the case with a planar transistor of the same size.
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This allows the Tri-Gate to operate at a low voltage, with lower current leakage. Intel can maximize current when the transistor is on, and minimize current when it's off. The company says that the 22nm Tri-Gate provides up to a 37 per cent performance increase at a low voltage compared to its 32nm planar transistor, as Intel Fellow Mark Bohr explained at this morning's press conference. The transistor also consumes less than half the power as a 32nm planar transistor at the same performance level, the company said.
