Images: New recipe for Intel transistors

Intel's Mark Bohr, director of process architecture and innovation, explains during a briefing Thursday why Intel has decided to use new materials to build transistors on chips that will arrive in the second half of this year. The new materials break with 40 years of tradition but are essential to improving chip performance into the future.

Intel plans to use the materials in its Penryn family of chips scheduled for introduction later this year and built with Intel's 45-nanometer manufacturing technology. The company demonstrated systems running on those chips for a group of reporters and analysts.

Photo by Tom Krazit/CNET News.com