Intel has unveiled details of its plan to produce the next generation of tiny transistors, which it claims will make its chips faster, cheaper and more energy efficient.
Shrinking transistors, which perform the calculations on a processor, makes them faster, more energy efficient and relatively cheaper to make because more fit on a single wafer.
Intel today detailed several of the latest production technologies that it will use to move to large volume manufacturing of chips based on 90 nanometre circuitry technology by the second half of 2003.
The chip-maker currently produces most of its microprocessors with 130 nanometre technology - a nanometre being one-billionth of a metre.
The company says its new process can create transistors whose key features are just 50 nanometres, or 1/2,000th of the width of a human hair.
"By next year, we will be the first company to have a 90 nanometre process in volume manufacturing," said Mark Bohr, Intel's director of process architecture and integration.
"This new process combines higher-performance, lower-power transistors, strained silicon, high-speed copper interconnects and a new low-k dielectric material," Intel said in a statement.
"This is the first time all of these technologies will be integrated into a single manufacturing process," it added.
Besides shrinking the circuitry on their chips, Intel is also seeking to combine multiple features such as memory and wireless networking on the same chip with microprocessors, making Intel a more credible contender in communications and other markets beyond personal computers.