Intel Physicists announce major chip breakthrough

The first major re-engineering of the transisitor in 40 years

From the New York Times and Intel Press:
The industry has been using silicon dioxide (SiO2) to build transistor gate dielectrics. However, as [transistor sizes shrink,] the gate dielectric gets thinner, leakage increases. Transistor gate leakage associated with the ever-thinning gate dielectric made of SiO2 has been recognized by the industry as one of the most formidable technical challenges facing Moore's Law in this decade. For its 45nm technology, Intel is using a hafnium-based high-k material in the gate dielectric. The high-k dielectric is created using atomic layer deposition (ALD) whereby a single layer of the high-k material molecule is deposited at a time. Because the high-k gate dielectric isn't compatible with today's silicon gate electrode, Intel had to develop the new metal gate materials to solve two fundamental problems that arise when the two are combined. One is known as "threshold voltage pinning" (also called "Fermi level pinning") and the other is "phonon scattering."

According to Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, "The implementation of high-k and metal materials marks the biggest change in transistor technology since the introduction of polysilicon gate MOS transistors in the late 1960s."
The Intel announcement was quickly followed by an announcement of a similar breakthrough by IBM/AMD.

See Photos/schematics from New York Times
See Intel Press Release
See Wikipedia on Hafnium