Intel Corp., the world's biggest computer chip-maker, said on Dec. 10 that it has developed a manufacturing process that shrinks the circuitry in a chip to just 32 nanometers (nm). One nanometer is equivalent to a billionth of a meter.
The company said that it would be ready to produce the 32nm "more energy-efficient, denser and higher performing transistors" in the fourth quarter of 2009. The new 32nm chips can be used in desktop and laptop computers and servers.
"Intel's manufacturing process has the highest transistor performance and the highest transistor density of any reported 32nm technology in the industry," the company said.
Intel's smallest current chip is 45 nanometers.
Intel said it would further release details about the new 32nm process technology at the International Electron Devices Meeting next week in San Francisco.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2008
