A new technology breakthrough in the semiconductor industry was achieved by an alliance of high-tech companies led by IBM when it successfully developed a process for 32-nm wafer fabrication.  The alliance also includes AMD, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Freescale, Infineon, and Samsung.  The breakthrough was achieved through a unique approach that's based on the use of high-k metal gate transistors. Because of this achievement, electronic consumer products such as laptops and cellphones will consume less power while becoming more powerful.