IBM unveils industry's first 7nm processors
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IBM unveils industry's first 7nm processors
IBM and its partners have produced the world’s first 7nm processors. The company, in partnership with SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s Colleges of Nanotech Science and Engineering, GlobalFoundries and Samsung were able to pull off this feat with the use of a new FinFET transistor design, as well as silicon germanium, a new material, to construct the current-carrying channels of the new chips. The new functional chips are built on 7nm nodes and IBM said that they had to use a new type of lithography called Extreme Ultraviolet, or EUV, which is able to etch finer circuit features.
As a result of this breakthrough, IBM claims that the chip manufacturing industry will be able to cramp as many as 20 billion transistors onto the 7nm chip that is the size of a fingernail. IBM commented that they have extended the life of the silicon semiconductor; their monumental efforts will also keep alive Moore’s Law, at least for a couple of years. The commercial manufacturing of 7nm chips will not start immediately as IBM declined to reveal a concrete start date.
(Source: IBM via The New York Times)
