The New York Times reports Intel has developed a technology called Finfet (or fin field-effect transistor) that will allow Intel to manufacture three-dimensional CPUs.
Until now, the conductive area of the transistors used in CPUs has been two-dimensional, which means that in order to pack a higher number of transistors within the same space, the transistors had to shrink to smaller sizes. Over the years, manufacturing tolerances have traditionally been the limiting factor in how small a transistor can get, but these CPU building blocks are now approaching a size where physics itself becomes a barrier to making them any smaller.
Intel's Finfet aims to work around this problem by building "fins" into the transistor structure, making the transistor's conductive area three-dimensional. Intel expects chips using this design to be 37 percent faster than current low-voltage chips while consuming half the power.
Not all chipmakers are convinced that going 3D is the right solution, and a few of them are taking a "wait and see" approach to Intel's Finfet technology. Intel plans to start producing chips using Finfet later this year.