International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) on Thursday unveiled the world’s first technology that can produce chips smaller than one nanometer. As tech companies race to build semiconductors that can handle increasingly demanding AI workloads.
The announcement comes as chipmakers search for ways to keep up with the decades-long trend of capturing more computing power in less space, a phenomenon known as Moore’s Law.
Strengthening IBM’s position to compete with contracted chipmakers TSMC and Intel, the new chip technology features a 0.7-nanometer transistor architecture, or 7 angstroms.
Intel said last week that a new generation of its 18A manufacturing process, which makes 1.8-nanometer chips, is moving into risk production, an experimental phase before commercial production.
According to IBM, a 0.7-nanometer chip holds about 100 billion transistors on a surface the size of a fingernail, nearly double the density of a 2-nanometer chip expected to be unveiled in 2021. It offers up to 50% higher efficiency or 70% more energy efficiency.
To achieve this, IBM developed a new transistor design called the “nanostack”. Instead of laying the transistors flat, its design stacks them in three dimensions on top of each other, packing them more closely into a space of the same volume.
“With our new nanostack architecture, we’re not just making smaller transistors, we’re rethinking how chips can be made to deliver dramatically more power and efficiency,” said Jay Gambetta, director of IBM research.
According to IBM, production could begin within five years. The company previously licensed chip technology to Samsung and Japan’s Rapidus. However, it has not announced a manufacturing partner for the technology.