New mobile chip technology reduces power requirements up to 80%

[Bob Russell]

"Intel Corp. and IBM have announced one of the biggest advances in transistors in four decades, overcoming a frustrating obstacle by ensuring microchips can get even smaller and more powerful." Intel will be in mass production with the new technology by the second half of 2007. IBM will take until 2008, but they will be integrating it into it's next generation of even more densely packed transisters.

This breakthrough news has the potential for greatly reduced power consumption for mobile devices. The new chips will use an exotic silvery metal called "hafnium" which will replace silicon layers. Power leakage caused by the increasingly tiny layer of silicon in the part of transisters called a "gate", was the single biggest potential barrier to the continuation of Moore's Law. "The problem with the previous technology is that the layer of silicon-based material is now just 5 atoms thick, meaning lots of electricity leaks out, resulting in wasted power and shorter battery life." That meant that even smaller transisters might not be possible without another breakthrough. Fortunately, that obstacle is now gone.

So for mobile device consumers, it turns out that the new technology is not only the first major materials change in chip manufacturing in decades, but it is also expected to be capable of reducing power consumption by up to 80%.

However, I wouldn't count on this advance alone being able to give us UMPC devices with 14hr battery life next year. While the display and wireless capabilites may be getting more efficient, they still use quite a bit of juice themselves.

From Reuters and PhysOrg.