Hafnium Over Silicon: Intel's Breakthrough Discovery in Microprocessor Manufacturing

It can be recalled that early this year, in January, in an exclusive press conference, Intel had announced its breakthrough development in microprocessor manufacturing, which is projected to become historically significant in the microprocessor manufacturing industry. Its purpose is basically to replace silicon dioxide in microprocessors using 45nm and smaller lithographies.

Furthermore, Intel stated that they had "the world's first viable 45nm processors in-house" (at that time) and "with one of the biggest advancements in fundamental transistor design in 40 years, the company's Intel 45nm Hi-k silicon technology can deliver more than a 20% improvement in transistor switching speed, and reduce transistor gate leakage by over 10 times." (As reported by Scott M. Fulton, III for BetaNews)

Before getting too carried away by all these technological terms, it would be wise to give a background on what 'Hafnium' is. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/, "Hafnium is a shiny silvery ductile metal that is corrosion resistant" whose physical properties are markedly affected by zirconium impurities. As an element, it is used to make control rods for nuclear reactors because it has the ability to absorb neutrons 600 times more than zirconium.

It can also be used to scavenge oxygen and nitrogen in incandescent lamps or as an electrode in plasma cutting because it has the ability to shed electrons into air. More importantly, a hafnium-based compound is employed in high-k dielectric gate insulators in 45nm generation of integrated circuits.

Silicon, on the other hand is the principal component of most semiconductor devices especially in integrated circuits or microchips primarily because it remains a semiconductor at higher temperatures and its native oxide is easily grown in a furnace and forms a better dielectric interface. Silicon also happens to be the second most common element that can be found on earth.

Intel, on its website, http://www.intel.com/technology, explained that the 45nm Hi-k silicon technology process will increase the transistor switching speeds, enabling higher core and bus clock frequencies, and thus more performance in the same power and thermal envelope which will in turn, help extend high-tech industry axiom that transistor counts double about every two years to deliver at an even more functionality while at exponentially decreasing cost. Compared to 64nm technology, hafnium based 45nm will provide benefits like approximately twice the transistor density, approximately 30% reduction in transistor switching power, greater than 5 times reduction in source-drain leakage power, and a great deal of increased battery life.