IBM unveiled new semiconductor technology on Thursday that the company says could deliver computer chips with 50% better performance while dramatically lowering power consumption.
The technology developed by IBM is not yet ready for industrial use, but the Armonk, New York-based company said it “sees a path to production in as early as the next five years”.
The breakthrough could mean a major leap forward as the industry races to cram more computing power into smaller devices, but worries grow over the tech industry’s huge energy needs.
Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s leading chip manufacturer, has recently begun mass-producing “2-nanometre” chips, the current cutting edge of the industry.
IBM’s new “0.7-nanometre” technology would represent a dramatic step beyond that.
The nanometre, an atomic-scale unit of measurement, doesn’t refer to the literal size of chips or their components but to how densely transistors – the tiny electronic switches that make up processors – can be packed together.
The smaller the number, the more transistors can fit on a chip the size of a fingernail.
IBM’s breakthrough packs nearly 100 billion transistors onto a chip that size – nearly twice the density of the 2-nanometre chip.
More transistors mean faster and more powerful computing and can help drive advances like faster smartphones and laptops, more efficient data centres, better self-driving cars, and more capable artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT.
IBM’s new chip is projected to offer “up to 50% more performance, or 70% greater energy efficiency than IBM’s 2-nanometre node chips”, the company said.
This is considered a critical advantage as data centres worldwide grapple with artificial intelligence’s enormous power demands, with local communities expressing increasing worry over the consequences of the facilities.
Nanostack
IBM’s breakthrough uses a new three-dimensional architecture called “nanostack”, which stacks transistor layers on top of each other rather than arranging them in a single layer.
“IBM’s latest chip breakthrough marks a landmark moment in computing, pushing technology beyond the nanometre era to the scale of atoms,” said Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research.
“We’re not just making smaller transistors, we’re reinventing how chips are built to deliver dramatically more power and energy efficiency.”
The technology also delivers a 40% improvement in SRAM memory chips – “something that we haven’t seen in decades”, said Huiming Bu, IBM’s vice president of semiconductors.
SRAM chips act like a processor’s short-term memory and are a critical component in electronic devices from gaming consoles to laptops.
IBM’s technology isn’t ready for mass production yet, with the company expecting to reach the manufacturing stage within five years.
Producing such chips is a highly complex process requiring advanced manufacturing equipment, deep technical expertise and billions of dollars in investment.
IBM doesn’t manufacture chips itself, instead licensing its designs to companies like Japan’s Rapidus, with which it is working to scale 2-nanometre production.
TSMC is currently developing “1.4-nanometre” technology targeted for mass production around 2028.
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