

Intel reinvents the transistor as a 3D Tri-Gate  - bzupnick
http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/intel-reinvents-the-transistor-as-a-3d-tri-gate-2011054/

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roschdal
I found the information about the size of the 3d transistors interesting. Does
this mean that Intel is currently able to develop and manufacture
nanotechnology devices (1 to 100 nanometres)?

For example, in the video the red blood cell was much larger than the 3d
transistors. If Intel is able to develop transistors which are on the same
scale as small theoretic nanotechnology devices, why aren't we getting access
to a lot of nanotechnology applications yet?

For example these nanotechnology applications:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nanotechnology_applicat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nanotechnology_applications)

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DarkSideofOZ
I work at Texas Instruments, and the fab I'm in does a 32nm process. The
problem is the methods used to make microchips vs mechanical working parts
would be vastly different.

If you were to make a gear at 22nm then blow it up to say 5 inches wide, it
would be the most terribly machined gear you ever saw. Heck it might look like
a roughly notched rock. Precision has to be refined at this level to make
complicated nano technology

You have to understand just how these chips are made. You start with a wafer,
send it to thin films cover it in a uv resistant coating affectionately named
photo resist, send it to photo lithography, expose it to uv light through a
precision laser etched crystal reticle to overlay a schematic design for the
bottom layer of the chip, then you ash the wafer to remove all the parts of
the photo resist that the UV light did or didn't soften/harden (there are
positive and negative photo resist types) then send it to implant and implant
materials such as boron, phosphorus and other materials that will change the
electrical properties of the wafer where implanted, then UV expose again, ash
it, now yo have the bottom the wafer is annealed to bring the implanted
particles to the top. Sometimes there is etching before any of this happens.
Then you build the wires above the silicon connecting all the parts, and
sometimes growing silicon in upper layers just to add more parts to the
circuitry. All through the use of etching(plasma, acid and others),
photographically, ashing among other things and there are many many quality
checks along the way just to make sure everything is going well. (no reason to
waste a month of process time on a chip that won't work because of something
that happened at the beginning of the processing. Basically everything is done
in layers. It can take months for chips to go from silicon to shippable chips.
I suppose you might be able to build mechanical object with photo-lithography
and I'm sure it has been done, but until processes are refined to where the
objects don't look as rough under a microscope as they do, then I don't think
it is very feasible.

Edit: On another note, now that we're able to make 22nm chips, by using the
same process we should be able to produce larger nano objects with greater
precision, like say 100-200nm. But as for 22nm precision, it's going to take a
while to get machine shop quality parts when scaled to large size at the 22nm
size.

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VB6_Foreverr
I can relate relate to the thickness of a hair but I can't relate to the size
of a red blood cell so... If Mr Bohr ia an average sized 1.8 metres tall and
is only a little smaller than the diameter of the hair after the first
shrinkage that means that after the second shrinkage where he's 100 nm tall
that the hair is about 1000 times wider than that. I calculate it would take
him a good 20 minutes to walk past the end of the hair and in his world this
chip is about the size of a pool table

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city41
At 1:31 it shows a far away shot of him, the hair and the chip. Before he's
shrunk to his final size the chip is already about the size of a large
building. Do you mean the transistor is about the size of a pool table?

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VB6_Foreverr
Sorry, yes, that was what I should have wrote

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hackermom
This video is a serious contender to Microsoft's Windows 7 House Party ad and
their Songsmith ad.

add.: why does everyone hanging around here have a stick or two up their
wazoo? Not a soul will fail to notice how truly ridiculous this video is in
the same lovely way the Songsmith ad is, but why is one not allowed to mention
this in jest without getting slammed over it? Breathtaking... :)

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philjackson
You quoted funny as if I shouldn't find it funny, but when that shrink ray
blew up...

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ColinWright
Thanks for the spoiler.

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spicyj
Don't read the comments if you don't want to know what's on the linked page.

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ColinWright
You're joking, right? A sizeable number of people here on HN read the comments
before reading the item, partly because the comments often have more
information than the item, and partly because the title is often less of a
guide to the quality than the comments. I _always_ check the comments first,
not least, in addition to the above, they usually load faster.

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philjackson
Wow, I thought you were being ironic when you mentioned the spoiler...

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ColinWright
I was being sarcastic. The spoiler really did spoil the joke, although the
joke was such a minor part that it didn't matter very much. The point remains.

Many people read the HN comments before the submission, and the spoiler, well,
spoilt it.

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spicyj
If you read the comments, it's unreasonable to complain about their having
content from the video. The point of the comments is for people who've seen it
to comment on it; if they're incidentally helpful to you without watching the
video, that's fine, but don't expect people not to spoil things.

~~~
ColinWright
Well, that's one point of view, but the ancestor comment to this, the original
one to which I replied, contains no information at all except to spoil the one
joke in the clip. It's content-free, except to be a spoiler.

And it spoilt it. For no value.

And that's my point. If it had also contained some actual value then I'd've
shrugged and not minded.

No doubt I won't persuade you, so I'll stop now.

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montagg
Even Apple's hastily thrown together tour of their antenna facility was sexier
than this. Wow.

I've never seen someone so awkward in front of a green screen before.

~~~
VB6_Foreverr
Fancy a geek being awkward in front of a camera :)

Actually I thought he was fine

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ortatherox
I really enjoyed it, I don't think he was awkwards either, but that he's older
and see's this video kinda thingamajig different to us whippersnappers.

I watched it all, and I learnt a lot from it. I'd've not watched a
dry/marketing video on a new processor technology.

