Intel's process roadmap for the next 10 years is exposed: 1.4nm process will be launched in 2029! How?

With Intel's semiconductor manufacturing process, the speed is getting slower ,10nm The craft was also mass produced this year after many ticket jumps , Outside about “ Moore's law is dead ”、“ TSMC surpasses Intel ” The sound of is also constant . however , actually , If we look at the density of transistors , Intel 10nm The process is actually better than TSMC 7nm EUV Process of （ Intel 10nm The transistor density of the process is 100.8MTr/mm², TSMC 7nm EUV The transistor density of the process is 96.5MTr/mm²）. And in the next ten years , Intel still hopes to continue to promote Moore's law .

In recent days IEEE International Conference on electronic equipment （IEDM） On ,ASML CEO Disclosed Intel 2019 ~ 2029 Chip manufacturing roadmap in , from 7nm、5nm、3nm、2nm, I have been looking forward to 1.4nm . In addition to simple digital goals , It also exposed some new technologies of Intel around the upcoming process nodes .

however , Foreign media pointed out , Actually this year 9 At the lithography conference in August , Intel has shown this slide , But this time ASML CEO Displayed PPT It is based on the previous PPT Made modifications , It is not officially released by Intel . The official original version of Intel does not disclose the number of process nodes at each time .

According to the exposure PPT Look at , It is expected that Intel's process nodes can be upgraded every two years , The first is from 2019 Year of 10nm process 、 Upgrade to 2021 Year of 7nm Extreme ultraviolet lithography （EUV） process . And then there was 2023 year 5nm,2025 Year of 3nm,2027 Year of 2nm, until 2029 Year of 1.4nm —— This is equivalent to 12 The position of the silicon atoms . obviously , Intel is planning to return to the rhythm of major upgrading every two years .

Besides , Between the two generations of process nodes , Intel will also introduce “ +” and “ ++” The iterative version of , To fully extract the performance of each generation of process . The exception is 10nm, It is already in 10nm + The stage of . So in 2020 and 2021 year , We will see 10nm ++ and 10nm +++.

ASML Think , Intel can do this at an annual pace , But there is also a special team to ensure that a complete process node can overlap with another process node . Interestingly , The slide even mentioned reverse migration （Back Porting）, This is a capability considered in chip design （ In the older “ ++” Remake on the node ）.

Although Intel is separating chip design from process nodes , But because the process has been locked , Its implementation is not a simple thing . From the slides , Reverse migration still has some limitations , Like the first generation 7nm The design can be reverse ported to 10nm +++,5nm Both support fallback to 7nm ++,3nm Portable to 5nm ++, as well as 2nm To 3nm ++.

It's important to point out that , This is not the first time Intel has mentioned reverse porting hardware design . Because the current generation 10nm The manufacturing process is lagging behind , Intel has considered 10nm and 10nm My retreat . Usually with the development of process nodes , Each major version iteration has a different team in charge . But the slide points out , Intel is developing 10nm Optimization and 7nm Series process technology .

Looking forward to the future , We will also see based on 10nm Chip design 7nm product 、 be based on 7nm The design of the 5nm product 、 And based on 5nm The design of the 3nm product .

It is worth mentioning that ,2023 Year of 5nm Process node , It happens to be ASML Sell it High NA EUV The time of the lithography machine , In addition, Intel has been considering new materials and new transistor designs .

Besides , In this year's IEDM The meeting , Intel also introduced that it can realize more advanced manufacturing process “2D Self assembly ” material , The size is about 0.3nm . Of course , There are still many problems to be solved if we want to succeed in mass production .

For self-assembly materials, please refer to previous articles of smart core ：《 The new direction of chip manufacturing industry ：“ Self assembly ” Technical analysis 》

edit ： Smart core - Ranger sword source ：TechSpot、cnbeta