IBM pushes 32-nm chips with BASF

IBM is also using the new deal to ratchet up competition with Intel, which plans to bring its own 32nm architecture chips to market by 2009. The two companies have been locked in an increasingly public race to design faster chips since they both picked the same day in January to issue news releases about advances in “high-k metal gate” technology. That approach employs rare materials to construct smaller, more efficient transistors than the silicon dioxide used in modern chips.