Source : DigitimesWhile founders had troubles to move to 45 nm engraving, the race to ever thinner process seems to be much faster and easier now. While Intel already plans to switch to 32 nm engraving next year, TSMC, one of the two on-demand founders announced its ability to offer 28nm process as early as 2010. Chips designer will even have options such as high-k metal gate (HKMG) and silicon oxynitride (SiON) depending on expected performance (low power consumption and/or high-frequency compatibility).
The first clients will most likely be graphic card manufacturers, especially NVidia; ATI being now part of AMD it can have access to internal technology and manufacturing lines.
At the end, the goal is always the same: produce the fastest and the most powerful chips, with eventually low power consumption, but on a smaller die size to reduce manufacturing cost (more chips per wafer).
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