To create even faster CPUs, Intel is researching stacking “multiple” transistors on top of each to raise the chip density to new levels.
The research represents a company effort to pack more transistors on the silicon and keep Moore’s Law alive well after 2025.
The company has already been stacking chip dies on top of each other to create denser processors that can run more efficiently. But it’s also been working on doing the same for transistors, the fundamental building block to computer circuitry.
Current Intel processors rely on two two transistor types, the NMOS and PMOS, which are placed side by side. The company’s research proposes placing the NMOS and PMOS on top of each other to free up space for more transistors, said Intel engineer Marko Radosavljevic in a video on Saturday.
The extra space means Intel could increase the transistor count by 30 to 50% across the same footprint. Radosavljevic added the company has been researching the technology for many years now, and it’s now reached the point where Intel can avoid creating the transistors separately, and then bonding them together.
“We can build both layers in one step, rather than building them separately,” he said. “This helps with alignment issues and reduces manufacturing steps.”
The technology is still far-off, but the company says the transistor-stacking could one day succeed Intel’s upcoming RibbonFET transistor, which is slated to debut in 2024 with Intel’s 20A manufacturing process.
The company previewed the transistor-staking research at the International Electron Devices Meeting on Saturday. During the same event, Intel also demoed a “magnetoelectric spin-orbit (MESO) logic device,” to highlight how “nanoscale magnets” could be used to build a new kind of transistor.
The other technology Intel is working on involves refining the company’s chip die stacking tech, Foveros. Intel now says it can increase the interconnected circuitry through Foveros by more than 10 times for better efficiency and more data delivery between the various chip tiles.
