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IBM develops the most powerful nanochip on the market, at only 7 nanometers wide
IBM announced that it successfully created the most powerful chip yet, at only 7 nanometers wide.
The much acclaimed news indicates a healthy market and healthy investment in technological development. The IBM chip boasts transistor gates of 7 nanometers. That means a higher number of transistors packed in one chip which boosts performance and efficiency.
By managing electricity flow more efficiently, data transmission becomes a comparatively easier task. Currently, user market chips vary between 10 nanometers to 14 nanometers.
The tech success of IBM is pined by the use of Silicon Germanium alloy to pack a higher number of transistors. Current technology typically uses silicon as the computer chips base. Silicon Germanium used by IBM is a more performant medium for transistors to use less power and switch the energy flow faster.
This promising result is the fruit of ongoing IBM efforts to created non-silicon chips, representative of a new, enhanced generation. Over the next five years, further funds will be invested in research and development.
The breakthrough claimed by IBM has the potential to enhance performance and power efficiency of computer chips by 50 percent compared to what is currently existing on the market. Many address the breakthrough as the clear manifestation of Moore’s Law, stating that the number of transistors on a chip changes approximately every 18 months.
What is the part of the achievement that is equally exciting is that:
“A company other than Intel has come out with the technology that supports the notion of Moore’s Law. You have to have someone other than Intel doing this stuff. It keeps prices down. And it keeps investment in new technology going up.”
The research project that led to the development of the new 7 nanometers chips has been jointly conducted by IBM in partnership with GlobalFoundries, a chip manufacturing plant, as well as Samsung and the New York State University.
The 7 nanometers chips are still a prototype and undergoing testing. Yet, according to Ars Technica, IBM plans to manufacture and release them on the market.
Image Source: gearburn.com
