Tech and financial publications are abuzz about Intel’s newly announced 3D transistor design ^[1]. But should anyone else care? Yes, because this new design is going to give us faster mobile devices with significantly better battery life than we have ever seen before.

3D in this instance refers not to an illusion created for entertainment or gaming but to the reality of a transistor that rises up from a flat surface. That allows for three gates, where two-dimensional planar transistors have only one. As Intel put it, “The additional control enables as much transistor current flowing as possible when the transistor is in the ‘on’ state (for performance), and as close to zero as possible when it is in the ‘off’ state (to minimize power), and enables the transistor to switch very quickly between the two states (again, for performance).”

Better performance means better power usage, and with battery power the biggest challenge for mobile devices, that’s good news for users. Not incidentally, it’s good news for Intel, which up till now had been lagging in the mobile market ^[2].

Read more from DailyTech ^[2].