Intel will be the first manufacturer in the industry to use cobalt as a material for electromigration in Intel Ice Lake processors, due to its excellent properties as a dielectric.

Intel Coffee Lake processors are interesting because they are the first from Intel to reach six cores and twelve processing threads for gaming, but far from that they do not contribute much and it is possible that the 9th Generation of Intel that will arrive soon, will not contribute nothing interesting except some adjustments to these processors, a maximum increase of 10% in performance and making users go through the box. The interesting ones are the Intel Ice Lake, the first processors to arrive in 10nm.

On Intel's 10nm there is not much data, but they did give some interesting data during the EEE International Electron Device Meeting in San Francisco, although we do not expect big data, they are rather data. The most interesting thing the company has said about the new processors is that they will use cobalt for 10nm, which will replace the copper / low-k dielectrics. Intel will use this metal, cobalt, in the lower two interconnection layers in the 10nm process, which reduces electromigration losses by five to ten times and reduces the resistance of the access path by factor of two. Thus, the company will be the first to use cobalt in its processors, while other companies and other processors will continue to use a variant of copper.

G. Dan Hutchenson, President and CEO of VLSI Research has said: 'Intel will use cobalt in the lower two layers of 10nm intent to achieve a five to ten-fold improvement in electromigration and a two-fold reduction in path resistance. It represents the first time that a chipmaker has detailed plans to produce cobalt, a long brittle metal considered a promising dielectric candidate, in a process. '

Source: eetimes