Re: The PMOS devices now run almost as fast as the NMOS transistors. Wei said the new process will allow design engineers to better balance the size of the N- and PMOS transistors to achieve PERFORMANCE improvements at the product level that he said could approach 50 percent.
Doug, process engineers mostly speak in terms of electron mobility and transistor drive current, not in end product frequency. 50% frequency gains are generally more than one can hope for by moving an entire process generation, and this was just a note about possible gains from rebalancing the size of the transistors. It's not something they are going to achieve simply by implementing the material and then restarting the manufacturing line. In fact, the statement is probably made without regards for voltage, meaning that the gains are possible at the top end of the curve. Of course, running your Opteron at 1.6V or whatever is the top of the curve, is probably not going to be a good idea for other reasons. But if you prefer to be insistent here and pretend you know what you're talking about, I'll be happy to bookmark and revisit later in the year. In fact, I'll just go ahead and bookmark anyway. :-)
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