Looks like 3D isn't just a fad, folks, so long as we're talking about silicon -- Intel just announced that it has invented a 3D "Tri-Gate" transistor that will allow the company to keep shrinking chips, Moore's Law naysayers be damned. Intel says the transistors will use 50 percent less power, conduct more current and provide more 37 percent speed than their 2D counterparts to vertical fins of silicon substrate that stick up through the other layers, and that it could make for cheaper chips too -- currently, the tri-gate technology adds an estimated 2 to 3 percent cost to existing silicon wafers. Intel says we'll see the new technology first in its 22nm Ivy Bridge CPUs, going into mass production in
