Llano is built on AMD’s new 32nm High-K Metal Gate (
HKMG) Silicon On Insulator (
SOI) process, and uses 11 metal layers, the same as Shanghai and Istanbul. The only change is that Metal 3 was reduced in pitch, and a lower K dielectric was used. On the silicon side, AMD is using dual strain liners, eSiGe, and some long-channel transistors to increase performance. The process also uses its second generation of immersion tools to draw the pretty lines on the wafers, think underwater basket weaving on a sub-micron scale with multi-million dollar tools.