I believe what they are saying is something like this, but I may be wrong:
Picture a grid, with small circles centered at each grid point.
The grid is the "metal layers", the circle size corresponds to transistor size.
As 90nm has been around, the circles have occasionally been shrinking, while the grid has remained the same. When the new 90nm parts are released (soon?) the circles will be so small that they will actually fit on a smaller (65nm) grid, and the first 65nm parts will use the same circles.
So they are arguing that the 90nm parts to arrive soon will actually feature 65nm transistors, as it were.
It is a bit strange, then, that these 65nm transistors, on the finer grid in the first 65nm parts, will lead to slower overall parts, but whatever.
So the chip size will shrink by the usual 57-60% factor. The interesting thing is that it could have been shrinking all along during the 90nm transistor shrinks, but it is a pain to do all that work, and easier to leave the grid alone while improving the transistors, which is what they did.
In Q2, they hope to squeeze out a tiny bit more performance by incorporating the SiGe strain they've been talking about.
What isn't quite explained by this story is why the first 65nm parts don't run at >= the speed of the last 90nm parts, and why they are not predicted to beat them even in Q207. After all, if they are using the same transistors with tighter (shorter) spacing, then what is causing the slowdown, and a relative slowdown predicted to remain for a few quarters? Increased interaction effects due the tighter spacing? Thermal constraints? (roughly same power in a smaller area).
I still wonder to what extent the transistors are actually "the same" vs. using "the same technologies" |
