Originally posted by: Viditor
Originally posted by: dmens
Much higher? When i read "40% improvement", my engineering sense screams "FUD". But kudos to IBM (hehe) if it is true.
I understand your dubiousness...
Intel has also made changes (which is why Yonah has such an improvement...)
For the gory details...
"AMD and IBM last year used a dual-stress-liner approach for their 90-nm transistors, putting differently configured nitride capping layers on top of the NMOS and PMOS transistors. At the 65-nm node, the partners added an embedded SiGe layer similar to what Intel used at the 90-nm node. Wei said ?a big boost came when we added the embedded SiGe? at the source and drain regions of the PMOS transistor.
The PMOS devices now run almost as fast as the NMOS transistors. Wei said the new process will allow design engineers to better balance the size of the N- and PMOS transistors to achieve performance improvements at the product level that he said could approach 50 percent"
"Intel did not add a compressive nitrde capping over the PMOS transistor, as AMD and IBM do. Intel decided to keep its process as simple as possible in order to keep costs under control, he said, adding that ?we achieved our performance goals with this approach.? "
"Andy Wei, a member of the technical staff based at AMD Dresden, described a new process that AMD will first retrofit into its 90-nm microprocessors, and then use in its 65-nm designs going into production in the second half of next year at AMD?s new 300-mm fab in Dresden"
EETimes article
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