45-nm chips on the way

An Intel worker holds a 300-mm wafer filled with 45-nm circuits.

Intel says it has built the first fully functional SRAM (static random-access memory) circuits using its next-generation 45-nm process technology. The 45-nm SRAM contains more than 1 billion transistors. The breakthrough puts Intel on track to make the 45-nm chips on 300-mm wafers beginning next year.

Circuits built with the new process will leak one-fifth the power lost by current devices, important for long battery life in mobile devices. Intel is using the SRAM device to check process yield and chip reliability before ramping up production of processors and other logic chips.

Intel, intel.com