AMD sneaks strained silicon into chips

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Advanced Micro Devices has begun to incorporate a form of strained silicon into its chips, a design twist that will let the company increase the performance of its processors.

The strained silicon is being incorporated into all of AMD's 90-nanometer chips, which the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company has just started shipping to PC makers. The technology also will be added to 130-nanometer chips that will be released this quarter, an AMD representative said Thursday. (The nanometer dimensions refer to average feature size on the chips. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.)

Strained silicon is a design technique in which silicon atoms are forcibly pulled apart from each other. With the atoms spaced out further from one other, electrons can move more rapidly, similar to how a hockey puck can zip faster across a rink than across a frozen lake. Faster electrons lead to better performance.

AMD's use of the technology in the chips was first reported by The Semiconductor Reporter.
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Read More/Source: C|Net Tech News

PoopyTheJ

This will be interesting to see how the chips overclock. Wait 90nm? Holy shit have I not been paying attention! Hmmmm, can't wait to see how the perform and what kind of overclock you can get out of em.

Zelig

Yay, go AMD!

EcPercy

They just snuck it in there? It appears that their manufacturing process may be moving along a lot better thean expected!