Intel's 0.09-micron Process - More Details Emerge

Productizing 90nm - What does this mean to you?

All of this talk of technology is great and all but when can you expect to see based on Intel's 90nm process as we move on into next year?

For starters, Intel will be sampling 90nm based parts by the end of this year. But as a change of pace, instead of the mobile arena being the first to enjoy a new manufacturing process, it will be the desktop and server sectors that get a taste of Intel's 90nm technology first. The reason for this change of tradition is because Intel will be phasing the Pentium 4 out of the mobile market and concentrating on ramping up Banias to take over the throne in that sector. Banias will debut early next year on a 0.13-micron process and it will be a little while before it gets a 90nm shrink as well.

Instead, you can expect to see a 90nm Xeon part for low-power and low-heat blade server solutions as well as a potential 90nm derivative of the Northwood core.

Then there's the obvious 90nm solutions - Prescott and Montecito. While Prescott will definitely see more of our time than the 4th generation Itanium successor, both will drive Intel's 90nm process to its limits. A mass production ~100M transistor Prescott with a 1MB L2 cache and a 4GHz clock speed will be a reality in the very near future, and it will be made possible by the technology that Intel is announcing today.

Even Intel isn't sure exactly what product will bring 90nm technology to the mass-market first, but regardless of what it is, it will definitely have benefited from the extensive amounts of R&D investment Intel has put into their fabs.