65 nanometer

From ArticleWorld

The 65 nanometre (65 nm) process is a new milestone in semiconductor manufacturing and fabrication. The average feature size of such a semiconductor could be a maximum of 65 nm and can reach as low as 35 nm on a “65nm” process. Companies presently pursuing 65 nm fabrications include AMD and IBM in collaboration and Intel Corporation.

Compared to other objects measured on the nanoscale, a 65 nanometre feature is extremely small. A human hair is 80,000 nm in diameter. Viruses can be 120 nm in diameter. The silicon crystal lattice has a spacing of around 0.2 nm.

New developments

At 65 nm, devices experience leakage. Intel is trying to cut leakage by 75% in its Prescott Pentium 4 core. Leakage is a damaging phenomenon in which electrons tunnel through an insulating region. It increases with an increase in the thickness of the insulating region. This leads to higher power consumption and complete circuit failure.

The Prescott core on its original process involving 90 nm produced heat output and power consumption – leading to great criticism of its product. With the use of second generation strained silicon fabrication technique and a low-dielectric-constant insulator, leakage is expected to be cut down drastically.

In December 2005, Intel Corporation announced the launch of a new 65 nm CPU developed for personal computers. Dubbed as “Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 995”, it is expected to be succeeded by 32 nm, 22 nm and then 10 nm technology.