Intel set to change microchip technology

Microchip technology is about to undergo a major shift away from a decades-long emphasis on increased performance towards valuing "performance per watt", according to Intel chief executive officer and president Paul Otellini.

He said microchips would not only have to deliver on performance but also consume less power.

The statement marks a significant new focus for a company whose history has been defined by upping performance while shrinking chip size every 18 months or so, in accordance with "Moore's Law", the famous rule defined by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965.

Addressing a conference in the US, Mr Otellini went so far as to describe the shift as a "fundamental inflection point" - a term coined by Intel co-founder Andy Grove to describe historical moments in technological development when innovation forces a total rethink of processes, products and markets.

Mr Otellini indicated that new chip production methods, based on placing multiple processors or "cores" on a chip, would lower power consumption while also improving performance.

Mr Otellini only hinted at coming changes in Intel's production methods during his speech.

However, Intel subsequently announced a new process for creating tiny low-power chips for hand-held devices, mobile phones and other portables.

Intel's most recent state-of-the-art chip fabrication plants cut circuits into the processors that are only 65 nanometres wide - or billionths of a metre - and can fit some 350 million transistors onto a single chip, raising performance.

But transistors are now so small that they often leak heat and consume power, even when they aren't actually running.

The new process uses different materials in the transistors and adds microscopically small insulation layers that cut down on leakage by 1,000 times.

Analysts say the process also halves performance, but in devices such as hand-held computers, lower processing power doesn't matter.

In future, multiple core technologies should counter the performance drop from the new manufacturing processes, allowing for the "performance per watt" strategy noted by Mr Otellini.

Rival Texas Instruments also announced this week that it has a new process for producing low-power chips.