IBM announced its development of a fingernail-size computer chip that has roughly four times more processing power than ever before. The transistors in IBM’s new chip clock in at a size of 7 nanometers long—an industry record. According to IBM, the company was able to make its breakthrough due to the use of silicon-germanium, a material that has lower power requirements than silicon and also speeds up transistor switching. Fourteen-nanometer transistors were the previous industry standard.
As points of comparison to the size of the seven-nanometer transistors, a strand of DNA is about 2.5 nanometers in diameter and a red blood cell is roughly 7,500 nanometers in diameter. IBM said that would make it possible to build microprocessors with more than 20 billion transistors.
Courtesy of IBM
IBM has not yet released information about when it will begin commercially manufacturing its new generation of chips, which are only in working versions right now. But in a statement, the company said that it expects the new 7-nanometer technology to be crucial in “meeting the anticipated demands of future cloud computing and Big Data systems, cognitive computing, mobile products and other emerging technologies.” IBM’s development of the chip comes out of the company’s $3 billion investment last year in partnership with New York state, GlobalFoundries, Samsung, and equipment suppliers, aimed specifically at manufacturing ultra-advanced computer chips. Thursday’s announcement bodes extremely well for the semiconductor industry, which will be able to harness IBM’s new technology for further innovation down the line.
To achieve the higher performance, lower power and scaling benefits promised by 7nm technology, researchers had to bypass conventional semiconductor manufacturing approaches. Among the novel processes and techniques pioneered by the IBM Research alliance were a number of industry-first innovations, most notably Silicon Germanium (SiGe) channel transistors and Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography integration at multiple levels.
Industry experts consider 7nm technology crucial to meeting the anticipated demands of future cloud computing and Big Data systems, cognitive computing, mobile products and other emerging technologies. Part of IBM’s $3 billion, five-year investment in chip R&D (announced in 2014), this accomplishment was made possible through a unique public-private partnership with New York State and joint development alliance with GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Samsung, and equipment suppliers. The team is based at SUNY Poly’s NanoTech Complex in Albany.
“For business and society to get the most out of tomorrow’s computers and devices, scaling to 7nm and beyond is essential,” said Arvind Krishna, senior vice president and director of IBM Research. “That’s why IBM has remained committed to an aggressive basic research agenda that continually pushes the limits of semiconductor technology. Working with our partners, this milestone builds on decades of research that has set the pace for the microelectronics industry, and positions us to advance our leadership for years to come.”
Microprocessors utilizing 22nm and 14nm technology power today’s servers, cloud data centers and mobile devices, and 10nm technology is well on the way to becoming a mature technology. The IBM Research-led alliance achieved close to 50 percent area scaling improvements over today’s most advanced technology, introduced SiGe channel material for transistor performance enhancement at 7nm node geometries, process innovations to stack them below 30nm pitch and full integration of EUV lithography at multiple levels. These techniques and scaling could result in at least a 50 percent power/performance improvement for next generation mainframe and POWER systems that will power the Big Data, cloud and mobile era.
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