Intel Announces Silvermont Atom Processor 3D transistor technology

Intel has announced yet another innovation, hot on the heels of the 3D transistor innovation, which has taken the processor world by storm. This latest innovation is a new microarchitecture for the low power consuming Atom processor, officially called as "Silvermont".

Set to debut in 2013, Silvermont is based on a technology similar in principal to that of System-on-a-chip (SoC) and it will be based on the newer 22nm fabrication process, part of the Tick (die shrink) scheduled to happen this year from the present 32 nm process. As you may be aware, the change in microarchitecture of the processor is known as the Tock, part of the Tick-Tock model followed by Intel. We must clarify here that current Atom processors are still based on the 45 nm process introduced in 2008, while only the mainstream Sandy Bridge line of processors are based on 32 nm.

The new microarchitecture, along with the tinier fabrication process with 3D transistor  technology is surely going to go a long way into the power efficiency as well as the performance of the new Atom processor. But we will have to wait a couple of years to find out how much of a difference it would really make.