But there is nothing fancy about the way that it got there: Intel essentially went down the list of elements found the materials that showed the right results (it is using two different materials for different functions).

The High-k gate meanwhile provide some much needed headroom in shrinking it down for future generations: the current 65nm chips use a layer that is only 5 atoms thick. Leave out one atom during production, and you just increased leakage by 20 per cent. The new technique uses hafnium instead, which is spread on so thick that there is plenty to shave off for future, smaller generations.

IBM too is preparing High-k technology, which it is expected to share with AMD and other chip manufacturers.

But lets get back to earth. Us mortal consumers will never see a single atom of hafnium. What does this get us?

We'll see a dramatic reduction in overall power consumption by our computers, allowing for longer battery life for our notebooks and ultra mobile PCs (UMPC). Or ultra slim and fanless desktop designs to match your living room sofa.

Enterprises will be able to fit more servers in a rack without increasing the overall power consumption of their data centres.

But that doesn't solve AMD's design lead in the server x86 space. The company still is the only one to have publicly spoken about having a monolithic quad core processor in the works. Intel meanwhile will remain to slap two dual core dies on a single chip, causing some significant overhead, performance loss and increased power consumption.

But that won't bother Intel much for now. The company can rest assured that its hold on the mobile market is tighter than ever and will continue working on more advanced chips. Today is Intel's party, and nothing is going to spoil it.

Photo of Intel's Penryn 45nm processor.