Intel's Breakthrough

Intel's Breakthrough

Yesterday was an important day for the computer industry and thus the U.S. economy. The Intel Corporation announced that it had overcome an obstacle in manufacturing microprocessor chips that had made the chips more energy draining the smaller they got. Chips house transistors, the ones and zeroes switches that are the neural basis for all computing. The more transistors you can fit onto a chip the more powerful the computing. For decades the American computer industry had obeyed the so-called Moore's law which held that technology would double the transistor-holding capacity of the chips every two years. Moore's law seemed to be threatened by the inability of the standard silicon dioxide insulator to prevent electrical leakage as chip size shrunk. Intel's breakthrough was to use the superior insulating capability of hafnium. Moore's law still holds thanks to Intel physicist Mark Bohr. Today's front-page article in The New York Times was the basis for this post. This is Public Occurrences.