Powervia is Intel’s opportunity to catch up with TSMC

In recent years, TSMC has partially overtaken Intel, once the world’s leading circuit manufacturer. The Asian giant’s manufacturing processes are used, among other things, in Apple’s successful A and M chips, in AMD’s Ryzen processors and Radeon graphics chips and for the current generation of Nvidia graphics chips.

When two years ago Intel released its new plan for development in the coming years, it promised a new era in 2024 with a new type of transistor called Ribbonfet and a new way of power delivery called Powervia. The latest Intel has released two research reports, which will be released at the VLSI symposium next week. in press release He writes about the company about the high hopes placed on Powervia technology.

Intel describes that so far the processors have been built like pizza, with the smallest components and denser structures at the bottom and coarser, less tightly-fitting components higher up in the layers. The completed circle is turned upside down and then filled.

With Powervia, the circuit is built from two sides. First, all the transistors that make up the logic circuits. Furthermore, all connected circuits (attach), but instead of putting the power circuits on top like before, Intel flips the chip over, polishes most of the silicon, and then puts the power supply circuits on the back.

Step towards cheaper, more efficient and on schedule

The new design partly means cheaper manufacturing despite the additional steps, partly that both the interconnect and power supply circuits can be made thicker, providing higher efficiency and signal strength.

According to Intel, the schedule will be kept from 2021 and the first circuits manufactured using the 20A node, which includes Powervia, will begin production in 2024. Intel also expects to go live with the next manufacturing node, called 18A, at the end of 2024.