3-D Tri-Gate. While it might sound like a mix between Trident gum and the Watergate scandal, Tri-Gate is actually a revolutionary 3-D transistor designed by Intel that will soon be put into high-volume manufacturing. As the microscopic building block of modern electronics, transistors are semiconductor devices that are used to switch and amplify electronic signals.

For decades, the 2-D planar transistor structure has powered nearly every electronics device, and now, Intel has announced that it will be putting their new 3-D transistors into high-volume production at the 22-nanometer node in an Intel processor – simply known as “Ivy Bridge”. The Tri-Gate transistors will help Intel keep pace with Moore’s Law, named after Intel’s co-founder, Gordon Moore, which describes a trend in computing hardware in which the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit doubles nearly every two years. This is a huge breakthrough in transistor technology.

You may be asking, “Why should I care?” Well, the new 3-D Tri-Gate transistors will be much faster, much smaller, and consume up to 50% less power. Intel, the largest provider of PC processors, says that the new 3-D transistors are so small that more than 100 million could fit on the head of a pin. Ivy Bridge is also said to be 37% more efficient than the best of Intel’s current chips at low voltage, and could help Intel break into the mobile arena of smartphones and tablets. Although the mass production of Ivy Bridge won’t begin until later this year or early next year, Intel began demonstrating prototypes of computers and servers running the new 3-D chip yesterday at a news conference. We are now witnessing the future of technology in transition!

Photo by Kit Eaton via Fast Company