SANTA CLARA, CALIF. —Moore's Law keeps ticking along and Intel's latest batch of computer chips, processors code named Broadwell and designed for fanless systems like tablets and 2-in-1s, cram more transistors into a smaller, thinner package than ever before.

The key to Broadwell, which will first roll out in System-on-a-Chip (SoC) products dubbed Core M, is Intel's successful ramp of its next-generation 14-nanometer process technology for fabricating microprocessors. The chip giant has lagged a little bit behind its traditional, "tick-tock" pace in getting 14nm up and running, but Intel's Broadwell team on Monday announced that "Broadwell Y" parts are now being produced at volume at Intel fabs in Oregon and Arizona, with a third 14nm fab scheduled to come on line in Ireland in 2015.

Intel said the first products using Core M SoCs built by its OEM partners will arrive on shelves this holiday season. More PCs and devices using other upcoming Broadwell-based chipsets will show up throughout 2015, the company said.

Broadwell is being billed as a major step forward for Intel, and will perhaps have more impact than the typical Moore's Law-driven "tick," or die shrink, which is accomplished every couple of years in keeping with the company's product roadmap cadence.

At Intel's campus here in the heart of Silicon Valley, the brains behind Broadwell emphasized the system-wide innovations that had to be made to get the powerful, x86-based Core microarchitecture to function in fanless designs. It has been a "multi-year journey," said Rani Borkar, a vice president in Intel's Platform Engineering Group. It's no secret that the company has struggled to compete in the consumer tablet market as ultra-thin fanless designs have relied on ultra-low power ARM chips over Intel's x86 processors.

Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst for Moor Insights & Strategy, said Broadwell could be a game-changer for Intel in the tablet and 2-in-1 market.

"Intel has really pulled it all together on 14nm. They are delivering full PC performance, day-long battery life, tablet-thin, and fanless feature sets. It was a tough journey getting there as they needed to invent things along the way, but they made it," Moorhead said.

The analyst predicted that "the biggest market impact from Intel's 14nm Broadwell will be the widespread availability of fanless 2-in-1s and tablets that are less than 9mm thin, but with full PC performance."

In fact, Intel had a Broadwell-based 2-in-1 reference design on hand Monday, which measured just 7.2mm—remarkably thin, considering it packed in a fully featured Core M chip inside, powering Windows 8.1 Professional.

So how did Intel finally get to the place where it can make Core products that run cool enough to be used in fanless slates and 2-in-1s, while also extending battery life and providing full-blown, x86-driven performance levels?

For starters, just by shrinking down and further optimizing its second-generation Tri-Gate (FinFET) transistors from the previous generation of 22nm chips known as Haswell, Intel was able to reduce the power draw of its Broadwell processors by 25 percent while providing the same performance as Haswell.

But Intel Fellow Stephan Jourdan, director of system-on-chip architecture in the company's Platform Engineering Group, explained that his team didn't stop there. Intel was also able to attain a 10 percent power reduction from 22nm designs by aggressively reducing leakage, as well as another 20 percent reduction via other design optimizations and reduced variation in Broadwell processors.

The next-generation SoCs were also optimized for low-voltage performance and an extremely low idle power draw—to the tune of a 10 percent improvement over the Haswell generation.

The new process technology is Intel's second go-round at Tri-Gate, meaning the chip giant will be shipping its second generation of chips using three-dimensional FinFET transistors while its competition is still producing processors using traditional, planar transistors, Intel Senior Fellow Mark Bohr said.

The improvements Intel made to its Tri-Gate process, changes that provide a considerable boost the performance-per-watt of Broadwell chips, are complex. Bohr explained that in simple terms, Intel made the "fins" of its second-generation Tri-Gate transistors taller but skinnier, while reducing the space between them and shrinking the circuitry in its on-chip memory cells as well.

"There are three possible benefits you get from scaling transistors and improving them. You can get higher performance, you can get a reduction of active power, but the key benefit is better performance per watt," Bohr said.

The end result for Intel is the new Core M lineup of SoCs, which come in a processor package that's significantly smaller in area and height than the Haswell chips it succeeds.

Intel also made it clear that it sees the projections for smaller and cheaper transistors enshrined in Moore's Law as holding up for several more process technology generations. That confidence and Intel's development of chips capable of supporting various new user interfaces were "the big takeaways for me," said Tim Bajarin, principal analyst for Creative Strategies.

"Moore's law is alive and well and could be extended at least another decade," Bajarin said. "I talked to Intel Chairman Andy Bryant and he says that they are already working on 10nm and could extend this [FinFET technology] to 7nm and 5nm in the future."

"The result of these new chips will be that they will be much more powerful and yet still allow for serious innovation in mobile designs," he continued. "Also, while touch, mice, and trackpads drive the UIs of today, the future UIs will be voice, gesture, 3D modeling, and AI, driven even in mobile devices and that will require a lot more processing power in the future."

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