Getting a look at Intel’s new 45nm fab
Here’s Intel’s Senior Fellow, Mark Bohr, showing me around the new Intel 45 nm fab up near Portland, Oregon.
Some parts of this are boring (he takes me into the part of the fab where workers put on their “bunny suits”) but others are real interesting, including a discussion of the technology behind how they shrunk transistors to 45nm.
And here’s Kelin Kuhn, who is the 45 nanometer device group manager. She runs the test lab where they figure out how to improve yields. That’s very important to Intel’s business. A little-known fact is that not every processor on a wafer is useable. The higher the percentage of usable processors, the more profitable Intel will be. It’s Kelin’s job to increase that yield. She’s a real impressive person and hope you enjoy meeting her as much as I did.
Of course, what does this all mean? By the end of 2007 companies like Apple and Dell will be able to bring out computers that are faster, use less power, and are cheaper to produce.
Congrats to the Intel team for getting 45nm done. It’s an impressive technical achievement and one that most of us don’t really appreciate when turning on our machines.
Here’s John Markoff’s article about the new Intel announcements in the New York Times.
UPDATE: PodTech produced a more professional video about these announcements.
Powered By 
January 27th, 2007 at 3:52 am
Great videos Robert.
As an engineering student, I also enjoyed very much your questions. Thanks for posting such a brilliant stuff.
Cheers! kota.
January 27th, 2007 at 9:57 am
The videos aren’t showing up for me - IE7 Windows PC
January 27th, 2007 at 10:18 am
David: weird. Can you watch them over on PodTech’s site? They work on IE 7 here.
January 27th, 2007 at 11:11 am
My brain is going to explode!
January 27th, 2007 at 11:41 am
[...] went even further. They deleted a comment of mine, on this post about Intel, where I pointed out I had some video about the Intel announcements last night that’d add onto their posts. Engadget hasn’t [...]
January 27th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
@ Robert Scoble,
This technology sounds great and all, but in reality;
1. How much faster will the equivalent to a current 2Ghz Core 2 Duo computer be though? 3X, 5X ?? (roughly)
2. What % better battery life should be expect from our lappies?
3. What % decrease in temperture should we expect from of our lappies?
Thanks in advance, Brendan.
January 27th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
The link in your update doesn’t go anywhere.
January 27th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
[...] I’m posting this from the Apple store in Palo Alto while my kids play games in the kids zone. Robert Scoble has videos from the manufacturing facility where PodTech had a first hand look at the new technology before [...]
January 28th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Sorry about the bad link. Fixed.
January 28th, 2007 at 11:18 am
[...] against Engadget. It’s understandable that when you have what you feel is good content (like Scoble’s exclusive video of Intel’s 45 nm fab — whatever that is), you naturally want people to link to it [...]
January 28th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
[...] http://scobleizer.com/2007/01/26/getting-a-look-at-intels-new-45nm-fab/ [...]
January 29th, 2007 at 9:04 am
[...] one of the questions arising from Robert Scoble’s rant that his Intel video interviews were largely ignored by gadget sites and mainstream media even though Robert believed those [...]
January 30th, 2007 at 9:09 am
[...] read more | digg story [...]