To achieve this, Intel uses a small transistor gate and the thinnest of thin films to make these ultra fast transistors. The technology also features a 1.5 nm gate oxide that is the thinnest in the industry for a manufacturing technology. The 1.5 nm gate oxide provides industry leading transistor performance at lower operating voltage. Copper is a better conductor of electrical current than aluminum, which was the metallization material used in earlier Intel process technology generations. Low-k dielectric is the insulation between the layers of metallization.
Good insulation isolates electric signals keeping the signals from contaminating each other.
The combination of faster transistors and high-performance interconnects of Intel's 130 nm process will enable the speed of microprocessor circuits of up to 65 percent relative to that attained with 180 nm technology. This will reduce power consumption and increase battery life in microprocessors targeted for mobile computing. As cache memory sizes in microprocessors increase, the SRAM cell size has greater effect on the chip area and manufacturing cost. Intel has focused on reducing SRAM cell size in its 130 nm process. An even smaller 2.09 square-micron SRAM cell is under development and will make these SRAM cells the smallest yet reported in the industry.