[megaframe]

No this design was developed back when I was in college, the revolutionary change here is that Intel has a process to actually manufacture these things effectively and get decent yield. IBM had these things built in test cases back in 2007 but didn't have a manufacturing method.

Intel will likely not patent or reveal the manufacturing method thats how most semiconductor manufacturing technologies go. They tend to be trade secrets that are a combination of process and machinery which your competitors are unlikely to ever reproduce exactly, so no point in patenting it.

[bradly]

Thanks, that makes sense. I did find this patent from Intel about manufacturing the 3D transistor: http://www.google.com/patents?id=1D2gAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...

[pfatehi]

"An alternative to the standard methods of building planar MOSFETs has been proposed to help alleviate some of the physical barriers to scaling down existing designs. These proposals involve the construction of three dimensional MOSFETs either in the form of a dual-gate transistor (FinFET) or as a tri-gate transistor as a replacement for the conventional planar MOSFET."

[pfatehi]

here's another one:

"TRI-GATE DEVICE WITH CONFORMAL PVD WORKFUNCTION METAL ON ITS THREE-DIMENSIONAL BODY AND FABRICATION METHOD THEREOF"

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2008/0157207.html