Intel will use glass to improve processors

Intel recently revealed more details of its revolutionary glass substrate technology, which promises a new way of manufacturing processors and promises many advantages over the standard organic substrate design that has been around for decades.

The glass substrate core in the processor core uses refined glass instead of the traditional core. The company still has working prototypes of the #141 that take advantage of the new technology, which affects almost every part of the processor.

First, there is a higher temperature tolerance, which potentially enables higher frequencies due to 50 % less sample deformation. On the other hand, the internal components will allow the #141 better power supply while achieving high-speed signaling, which should increase the #141 performance at low power consumption. Intel carefully chose the date for the unveiling of the new technology, as this only increased the impatience of users who are preparing for the release of the 14th generation processors (Raptor Lake) next month.

The number of transistors will also increase. More it will be possible to squeeze them into a smaller space, which will enable a more complex design of integrated circuits. The glass supports/substrates have an ultra-low flatness that improves the depth of focus for lithography, the process that prints or assembles the processor core. This is extremely important, since the number of transistors directly affects the performance.

Babak Sabi, senior vice president and general manager of assembly and test development at Intel, said: “After a decade of research, Intel is the leader in glass substrates/substrates for advanced manufacturing. We look forward to delivering these cutting-edge technologies that will benefit our key players and customers for decades to come.”

Similarly, connections between components will experience up to a tenfold increase in density, which enables higher communication speed and greater bandwidth between different parts of the processor core. Glass substrates will further increase these speeds thanks to the seamless integration of optical connections.

In general, the new technology will continue Moore's law, which predicts that the number of transistors on processors doubles every two years. This number has declined in recent years, as smaller production processes and a higher number of transistors were more difficult to achieve, and manufacturers turned to processors with more transistors to increase the number of transistors. cores and 3D stacking techniques.

Glass substrates could offer other ways to increase the number of transistors and therefore performance, the technology can be used for any processor while reducing power requirements. In addition to the performance and power benefits, Intel says yields should increase as well. Unfortunately, the technology probably won't be available to users until the second half of this decade.