Intel: 'Star Trek' ein wenig näher gerückt.

Die Prozessoren würden damit so leistungsfähig sein, dass selbst universelle Simultan- Übersetzungen wie in der Science-Fiction-Serie „StarTrek“ auf normalen PCs laufen könnten. Für die nächsten Jahre erwartet Dott, dass die Software-Entwickler zahlreiche neue Anwendungen entwickeln, die diese Leistungsfähigkeit nutzen.


Transistoren sind die Bausteine eines jeden Mikroprozessors und senden durch An- oder Ausschalten elektrische Signale. Dabei wird ein Elektron durch das so genannte Transistor-Tor (Gate) geschickt. Die neuen Intel-Transistoren sollen eine Breite von nur noch 0,03 Mikrometer haben. Ein Stapel von 100.000 Transistor-Toren wäre gerade einmal so dick wie ein Blatt Papier. 12 Millionen Transistor-Tore kämen übereinander gelegt damit auf eine Höhe von einem Zentimeter. Die ersten Transistoren der neuen Generation sollen Intel zufolge im Jahr 2005 in die Massenproduktion gehen.



© dpa

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SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Intel Corp., the world's largest manufacturer of computer chips, says it has built the world's smallest and fastest transistor -- a milestone that will allow the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company to build within the next five or 10 years microprocessors that will be 10 times more powerful than the ones available today.

Intel (INTC: Research, Estimates) officials plan to share details of the breakthrough Monday in San Francisco at the International Electron Devices Meeting, a technical conference for semiconductor engineers and scientists

SAN JOSE, California -- Intel Corp., the world's largest manufacturer of computer chips, says it has built the world's smallest and fastest transistor - a milestone that will allow the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company to build within the next five or 10 years microprocessors that will be 10 times more powerful than the ones available today, the Associated Press reported.

Intel (INTC) officials plan to share details of the breakthrough Monday in San Francisco at the International Electron Devices Meeting, a technical conference for semiconductor engineers and scientists.

Chips, which are the brains of computers, contain transistors that act like switches controlling the flow of data. The smaller the transistors, the faster the chips can perform.

Today's fastest chip on the market, Intel's Pentium 4, squeezes 42 million transistors onto a sliver of silicon. With the latest tiny transistors, future chips could have 400 million or more transistors. The new transistors, Intel said, are .03 microns wide, or about three atoms thick. A pile of 100,000 of them would equal the thickness of a sheet of paper, the company said.

"Semiconductors have been on this growth curve for a long time, and Intel has validated that we'll be able to continue on this path," said Jim Handy, a chief analyst with Dataquest.

Other semiconductor manufacturers, such as IBM Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., have all been locked in a race with Intel to create faster, smaller chips, but Intel, for the moment, is still holding the crown.