Chipworks Begins Teardown of Intel 45 nm Penryn MPUs

Staff -- Semiconductor International, 10/26/2007 12:23:00 PM

Chipworks Inc. (Ottawa, Ontario) said Friday (Oct. 25) that it has started to analyze Intel Corp.’s “Penryn” processors, made with Intel’s 45 nm process technology. The chips, which are not yet commercially available, are of particular interest because Intel has said the transistors include a hafnium-based high-k gate dielectric, and two different metals as the nMOS and pMOS electrodes.

Intel has disclosed little information about those materials, other than to say the dielectric is based on hafnium. Also, competitors have said that Intel is in all likelihood using a "gate last" process in order to deposit the two different metals, with no confirmation of that from Intel, leading to an expectation that information about the materials and process flow may become more clear when Chipworks publishes its analysis.

Several Intel-watchers have speculated that once Chipworks publishes its analysis, it will free Intel to publish a detailed paper on its high-k technology.

Chipworks distributed a micro-photograph of the logo on the Penryn silicon that it has started to analyze.

Dick James, senior technology adviser at Chipworks, said the technical community also is interested in the claim that the high-k/metal gate technology will result in major reductions in source/drain and gate oxide leakages. "By getting inside the technology, we will determine how the Penryn processor lives up to its pre-release billing,” James said in a statement.

The Penryn chips are now in Chipworks’ labs “and will undergo a thorough structural analysis and transistor characterization,” said Gary Tomkins, vice president of technical intelligence at Chipworks.

Ray Fontaine, an engineer at Chipworks, has published a blog about the history of Intel’s major silicon releases from 1992 to the present, with information promised on the Penryn silicon in a future blog entry.