As a blogger, it's good to have the bar set so low. Self-congratulation, self-promotion, and all around self-indulgence are pretty much standard. Of course, then there's all the re-posting, regurgitation, recycling and repetition. With two weeks between posts, it's good to have this standard to work with. That's why this week, I will hit both of the blogosphere's core competencies.

Let’s start with the RE-cycling angle. Chipworks began analyzing the most advanced semiconductor technology (about to be) in the marketplace. Congratulations to Dick James and his team for being the first to tear apart Intel's new 32nm process.

Dick has highlighted some very subtle contrast in Intel's TEM image of their 32nm NMOS transistor that suggests epitaxial growth for the source and drain regions similar to what Intel has been using since the 90nm generation for PMOS transistor design. The embedded SiGe contributes compressive strain for charge carrier (holes for PMOS) mobility enhancement which ultimately leads to improved drive current for the p-channel transistor.

If that contrast is real, then Intel will be shipping CPUs with another technology first - embedded carbon-doped (e-SiC) NMOS transistors. I have a hunch that there's something more to Dick's speculation than just a recycled Intel PR image with some dotted lined drawn over it. He is saving confirmation for his lead reverse engineering customers. Dick 's post explains all of this very well adding a couple of references to Intel patent references for good measure.

Now that you are covered with the regurgitation element of blogging, it's time for a little self-promotion. Next week, I will be in San Diego to attend the Image Sensors 2009 conference. I was invited to follow up my 2008 presentation in London with an update on some technology trends. I will review the trends in the market, current products as well as intellectual property. I hope to find something useful to say about the correlation between market activity and research trends as measured by patent office activity.

With those two bits of low-brow blogging out of the way, perhaps I can get to the real purpose for posting today. And that's really just to make a promise to give some highlights and my observations from Image Sensors 2009. If not that, then I'm sure I will have something to say about San Diego itself since I have never been there before.