Intel Corporation today announced it has identified new materials to replace those that have been used to manufacture chips for more than 30 years. The breakthrough is a significant accomplishment as the industry races to reduce electrical current leakage in transistors – a growing problem for chip manufacturers as more and more transistors are packed onto tiny pieces of silicon.

Intel researchers have developed record-setting, high-performance transistors using a new material, called high-k, for the “gate dielectric” and new metal materials for the transistor “gate”. The gate turns the transistor on and off and the gate dielectric is an insulator underneath it that controls the flow of electric current. Together, the new gate and gate dielectric materials help drastically reduce current leakage that leads to reduced battery power and generates unwanted heat. Intel said the new high-k material reduces leakage by more than 100 times over the silicon dioxide used for the past three decades.

The second part of the solution is the development of a metal gate material, since the high-k gate dielectric is not compatible with today’s transistor gate. The combination of the high-k gate dielectric with the metal gate enables a drastic reduction in current leakage while maintaining very high transistor performance, making it possible to drive Moore’s Law and technology innovation well into the next decade. Intel believes that these new discoveries can be integrated into an economical, high-volume manufacturing process, and is now moving this transistor research into the development phase.

Transistors with these new materials are an option targeted to be integrated into future Intel processors as early as 2007, as part of the company’s 45nm manufacturing process.

Intel will discuss details of the development of new transistor materials on the 6^th of November at the 2003 International Workshop on Gate Insulator in Tokyo.