It seems Intel (INTC +0.42%) is preparing to manufacture a set of processors that will be significantly more powerful than the current products on the market.
On Thursday, Chief Architect Raja Koduri revealed that the company has devised a novel way of manufacturing transistors, and will be utilizing a new material to improve capacitors. These modifications, he said, should result in an improvement of up to 20% in processor performance.
This will be "the largest intra-node jump ever in our history," Koduri said in an interview with Reuters. "It's actually [the] same as what you would get with one full Moore's Law node of performance."
Moore's Law, famously named for Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, recognized and predicted what has been a decades-long pattern in the chip industry -- that the number of transistors manufacturers are able to fit on a processor doubles about every two years.
Image source: Getty Images.
Thus far, this has not been a good summer for Intel or its investors. The company, which both designs and produces its own chips, announced last month that its plans to start manufacturing using its next-generation, 7-nanometer chip process would be delayed for around one year from its internal target date.
Intel said it would likely try to bridge that gap by outsourcing some of its manufacturing. However, even a few months is a long time in the fast-paced and highly competitive world of processors.
The first chips to be manufactured under the new process -- the Tiger Lake line for laptops -- will be made using the company's existing 10-nanometer fabrication systems. These chips are slated to be rolled out this fall.
Intel's shares closed trading Thursday down by 1.3%, while the broad market S&P 500 index slid 0.2%.
