back to article Intel reveals 14nm PC, declares Moore's Law 'alive and well'

Intel wants you to know that Moore's Law is not dead. And to prove it, CEO Brian Krzanich rolled out his company's next generation of process shrinkage at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. "I'm here to introduce the first 14-nanometer PC," Krzanich said during his Tuesday keynote. The Ultrabook he displayed to his …

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  1. DN4

    Moore's law

    Now they are talking about ~100 atoms. That certainly isn't macroscopic but some wiggle room still exist, a single misplaced atom here or there does not break it completely. But Moore's law is still pretty much dead within less than ten years.

    1. Mikel

      Re: Moore's law

      After 7nm in X and Y, they start to go Z. In flatland the energy savings from diminishing node sizes has been sacrificed on the altar of clock speed. 1.2 GHz seems to be the sweet spot for low power, so massively powerful towers of 8 core 1.2GHz 7nm cpus thousands of layers thick seems to be the way forward. A datacenter - in your pocket.

      Now: what to use it for.

      1. Stuart21551

        Re: Moore's law

        Mikel said "After 7nm in X and Y, they start to go Z. In flatland the energy savings from diminishing node sizes has been sacrificed on the altar of clock speed. 1.2 GHz seems to be the sweet spot for low power, so massively powerful towers of 8 core 1.2GHz 7nm cpus thousands of layers thick seems to be the way forward. A datacenter - in your pocket.

        Now: what to use it for."

        Super realistic porn. Because your girlfriend walked out because you are always playing with that massively powerful tower in your pocket.

    2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Moore's law

      Now they are talking about ~100 atoms.

      Actually the Van Der Waal's radius says about 66, but the covalent radius puts it about 120 atoms.

      So still another 7 generations left before the "1 atom transistor."

      If Moores law is alive and well then that's about 2023.

      At which point all those MBA types in senior Intel management will be very unhappy.

    3. Jerky Jerk face

      Re: Moore's law

      Yeah im sure...

      When we are using 7mn chips to compute how to make a photon based processor, Moore's law will be resurrected again!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        photon based processor

        Using 7mn chips to compute how to make a photon based processor?

        They better compute a way to run XP on it or I ain't fucking buying it 'cause Microsoft isn't ever gonna come up with a more usable OS.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: photon based processor

          "They better compute a way to run XP on it or I ain't fucking buying it 'cause Microsoft isn't ever gonna come up with a more usable OS."

          They already did - Win2k

  2. Bill Neal

    Even without another process shrink...

    Doesn't this give us even more room & better thermal envelope to add more subsystems to the same chip? The SoC development seems to take away more & more bottlenecks from our systems while giving us more efficiency. I'm sure there will always be the need to connect it all (and upgrade the GPU), but apart from the solid state storage & bus connections, what else can we shrink?

    1. Roo

      Re: Even without another process shrink...

      "what else can we shrink?"

      Network ports (in progress@Intel, done by just about every other uArch out there)

      RAM (IBM do this on die and with and MCMs)

      NVRAM (Embedded folks do this all the time)

      Batteries (lots of 5-10 years from tomorrow stuff).

      Mount the logic directly into stuff like display panels.

      The problem with all that stuff is that it has to be affordable in volume to work for Intel - and the problem is ARM has already got all that and is intent on nibbling away at Intel's low end. I never thought ARM would end up where it is today, amazing stuff.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: Even without another process shrink...

        But then Linus will ream you out because you designed stuff without thinking about the software that's gotta run on it.

  3. poopypants
    Coat

    Intel reveals 14nm PC

    That's a really, really, tiny PC. How big is the keyboard?

    1. Mikel

      Re: Intel reveals 14nm PC

      About as big as a tin of Altoids. http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/e722/

  4. alur

    Yawn, I'm impressed. Now, how about improving the heatsink'/fan attachment to a d..mn motherboard. After years of suffering the non-Intel-igent process of jamming plastic, push-pins into a motherboard to the point of warping it, I'm building a sane, AMD computers that cost less and has an easy heat/sink attachment. We have more than enough power with AMD or Intel. Now it comes down to convenience.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You have more than enough power for your applications. Doesn't mean you can speak for other people or the software we are developing for the future. Roll on 10nm.

      1. Suricou Raven

        If Google Glass and the imitators take off, augmented reality will inevitably follow. That's going to create a lot of demand for high-performance yet low-power and compact processors to handle the image processing part.

        1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

          Then we can all euthanize ourselves in an iDream.

    2. Sampler

      if only..

      ..there were third party vendors that would cater to your needs, wouldn't that be a thing..

  5. Schultz

    Graphene?

    ""I can tell you that in the next several generations you're not going to see a lot of graphene parts" ... and when it arrives, what will it do? I wonder if anybody will talk about graphene 10 years from now or whether it'll go the way of its predecessors, the fullerenes (90s) and the nanotubes (2000s).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Graphene?

      It is the fullerenes and nanotubes - still - they've just got excited about them opened out and flattened, rather than all curvy.

  6. Snow Hill Island

    Dark Dark Dark Dark

    There's only one thing that I know how to do well

    And I've often been told that you only can do

    What you know how to do well

    To keep Moore's law

    Shrink process size

    Be like yourself

    And so I'm having a wonderful time

    But I'd rather be whistling in the dark

  7. Crisp

    14 nm!

    How much heat are these chips putting out? I'm thinking that this manufacturing process packs transistors denser, which would translate to the same amount of heat being generated in a smaller space.

    1. adnim

      Re: 14 nm!

      Lower voltage, shorter pathways. less electrical noise is a plus of shrinkage, it all kinda cancels out the effect of packing more in the same space so the TDP remains similar.

  8. rav

    Moore's Guidline or Observation is not a Law...

    ...so stop perpetuating that myth. Repeating bullshyte doesn't make anything else but boring repetitive bullshyte.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Moore's Guidline or Observation is not a Law...

      Tell that to Sod, or to Murphy. Tucker's Law is a variation of Sod's Law, but with added profanity.

  9. CADmonkey

    "The engineers, they'll find out a way to do it."

    Most of my clients have this tattoed on their wrists

  10. xj25vm

    What's the point of all this?

    Yeah - Intel developing great technology and fantastic processors. What's the point of it all - when the marketing departments at both Intel and OEM's manage to screw it all up for us. Five years ago I bought an 11.1" laptop with:

    1. 5.5 hours battery life

    2. Optical (DVDRW) drive integrated

    3. Excellent and loud speakers (for a laptop).

    4. Solid chasis

    5. 1.4 Kg weight

    6. 2 full size usb ports, full size SD card slot, full size VGA slot

    7. Removable battery

    8. Usable (1300x700) resolution

    9. Just about fast enough processor (Intel U2500 at 1.2GHz)

    10. Full size ethernet integrated

    11. Sane price (£499 reduced at the time)

    The above is what I call a highly functional, portable and usable configuration at a decent price point. Five years later, I have been searching incessantly for even a slight upgrade to this laptop - without having to drop key aspects of its functionality. Not a chance:

    1. I still use optical drives quite a bit. A BDRE drive would be even better. Not a chance below 12" size (even there they are very rare).

    2. Most small laptops/ultrabooks skimp on connectivity like hell. MicroSD instead of full SD (if you are lucky to get anything), no integrated ethernet, mini VGA and/or HDMI (if any).

    3. I could have just about managed with a netbook - but they had to screw the resolution on them - keep it at 1024x640 - so nobody can do proper work on them!

    4. Atom Z2760 might be really good on power consumption (and pretty much the same as my old processor above) - but it is 32bits only (not a huge deal breaker) and doesn't have virtualization extensions. And has not Linux support. Thanks a lot Intel!

    5. Removable batteries - well, they went out the window a while ago. But even worse - they bundle skimpy 2-3 hours batteries with small machines nowadays. Screw the darned thin edges - give me a square blunt edge and bundle a decent 10 hours battery in there - for pete's sake!

    6. Intel has some pretty good processors - the "Y" from Ivy Bridge - with excellent power consumption and features. But they are so expensive, that you can only find them in £1000 plus machines. The rest - they are still putting out Sandybridge Celeron's in ultra portables to keep prices down. That's ridiculous.

    So yes - keep on inventing cool and fantastic technology - and then make machines good for playing with only. Seven years ago we could buy full featured ultraportable sub-netbooks at 11.1" screens with every imaginable feature and port, excellent processors, optical drives and solid construction - nowadays - back to stoneage. 'Cause none of us need to do work any more - we are all kids and watch cats on Youtube all day long. Great.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What's the point of all this?

      " Seven years ago we could buy full featured ultraportable sub-netbooks at 11.1" screens with every imaginable feature and port, excellent processors, optical drives and solid construction - nowadays - back to stoneage. 'Cause none of us need to do work any more - we are all kids and watch cats on Youtube all day long. Great"

      Which is pretty much why my last couple of laptops have been ex-corporate refurb. The new stuff on the market in recent years is just daft, either in technology terms or price terms or sometimes both. Refurb means you risk dodgy battery but I'm not road warrioring much any more so as long as I get a few hours...

      Meanwhile, the photo on the front page headline thing for this article.

      Is it that Gordon Moore?

      Or is it Max Headroom?

      Or am I confused?

      1. digital display

        Re: What's the point of all this?

        Hi Mr. Coward.. I hear ya on many topics..We go back in tech time..

        I've gone from a Sinclair, Wang Word processor since 1981 to the corporate world. Working within an Enterprise environment, I think gives us an above the cloud view of modern technology. Technology is more than faster chipsets and more memory..(although we who thought overclocking was a religion lusted over speed ) Now..Not so much..We hacked luggables with 20MB HDD running DOS and was in heaven.

        That's what this whole lusting over iPhone and Droids makes me laugh ( inside of course )

        I've backed off of phones a bit..If it can call do email and a couple of other nifty things..( Like security cameras at the house ) Then that is much as I need the damn thing..

        I like real power..Running WAN's, installing Hypervisors and VM's, creating virtual networks, Creating Cisco switch/router instances and Clouds..practicing SDN. We are an Oracle house so ERP instances interest me. I like to understand the underpinnings of active directory and Linux servers..Those that started out in the early days understand the vast universe before us..It's just as exciting today as when I got my first DOS prompt.

        I guess I go against the grain because I think my phone is good to find the closest Chinese take-out or talking to friends..Other than that..Meh...But check out my war room..My Systems Freaking Rock!

        Hi Reg Readers! My first post...

  11. JDX Gold badge

    Cut the Rope

    What a way to demo a breakthough in CPU progress, playing a dumb game that will run on a 3rd hand smartphone. Did they not want demo it doing anything more taxing in case it broke?

  12. LemmingO

    CEO's surname

    I'm still shocked at how many media outlets get the Intel CEO name wrong... I mean deep-pockets mainstream media still call him Kraznich. FML.

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