Intel Research on 11 nanometer and smaller

EEtimes reports on an Intel Facility in Ireland that is researching on pushing lithography and self assembly for chip manufacturing on the 11 nanometer and smaller nodes.

Intel has an advanced research facility in Ireland that is looking 5-10 years out. Much of Intel’s nanotech research is done with the Center for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices (CRANN) at Trinity College Dublin and at the Tyndall Institute in Cork.

We don’t think much about [development] this side of 10 nm,” he said, since “32 nm is already out there, 22 nm will appear in 2011, and they are already working on 16 nm in Portland.”

Devices are Portland’s domain. Although some [advanced] research must be done with cognizance of the structure, in general the kind of pure material measurements that Intel’s European team is making don’t need to know the structure.

“Eventually” noted Hobbs, “the device becomes a wire anyway.”

Hobbs points out that the research is predominantly precompetitive and as such tends to look forward five to 10 years. As technologies come closer to deployment, they get passed back to Portland, Ore., where Intel tends to pursue development behind closed doors.