Intel shows roadmap of up to 4nm in 2022

During a press conference in its Japanese office, Intel has released a sneak-peek of its future plans and the required technology. The chip manufacturer plans to stay true to its famous tick-tock strategy and has shown a global roadmap up to the year 2022. The tick-tock model means that the company will introduce a smaller production process (tick) every two years, followed by a new processor achitecture (tock).

At the moment, we're in the tock-phase of the 45nm Nehalem architecture. Next year, a new tick will take place, reducing the transistor size to 32nm, also known as the Westmere chips. In 2011, Sandy Bridge is to be released, the 32nm Westmere tock, which will then be followed up by another tick, the 22nm Ivy Bridge. By the year 2022, the end of the roadmap, Intel plans to have created transistors as small as 4 nm.

The roadmap features a light-blue seperation, to which Intel responded that the tick-tock strategy will be under fire after 2012. Though transistors of 16 and even 11 nm are theoretically possible at this point, the 8 nm process will require another technological breakthrough. It's still unclear how transistors at this size are to be realised. The blue part of the roadmap is to be perceived as an extrapolation of the results of past years.

Apart from this promising, but rather abstract roadmap, Intel also showed some facts about the 32nm process. Mentioned were the wafer production costs, which are similar to those of the 45nm process, as well as the sales figures of the second quarter and the announcement of two new production facilities in Asia.

Tags: nehalem

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