IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

giwook

How does IBM commercialize this? Do they license this out to fabs?

ginko

IBM regularly announces silicon breakthroughs like this but I'm not aware of those ever becoming products. Is IBM mainly in the business of licensing their technology to big silicon manufacturers with stuff like this? Is it just marketing for their consulting business?

mxuribe

A little bit of a nitpick, but wouldn't that be a picometer instead of angstrom node? Like, isn't a "pico-" the next magnitude smaller than "nano-", or am i wrong? Otherwise, that chip tech sounds really awesome - at least for the future!

buran77

> logic technology can extend for the first time below the 1 nm node, advancing the era of angstrom-level scaling, where dimensions approach the size of individual atoms. While transistor nodes now refer to a generation of manufacturing technology versus an exact physical dimension, IBM’s 0.7 nm technology—also referred to as 7 angstroms—demonstrates how continued scaling remains possible. Continuing the well established trend of making bold claims about physical dimensions that have nothing to do with any of the structures in the chip, and the name scales better than the tech. What they actually deliver is a "nanostack architecture" built with ~5nm features that according to them is comparable to a hypothetical real sub-1nm chip. It's an impressive achievement nonetheless but it looks like the industry has a few too many marketers.

petcat

> IBM and its partners conduct this work at a leading semiconductor research facility in Albany, New York, which will soon be home to a High Numerical Aperture Extreme Ultraviolet (High NA EUV) lithography tool, essential for the future of logic scaling. Developed by ASML, this technology enables ultra‑precise circuit printing, supporting the creation of smaller, more powerful chips. I'm guessing that this is the technology that is developed by Cymer (ASML subsidiary) in California, correct? Is there competing technology? I know xLight is trying to make some inroads on their own version of this EUV tech. I have not heard about any progress though.

applfanboysbgon

For anyone who needs it, a friendly reminder that CPU nm marketing is a complete fabrication and the physical size of transistors has zero relation to the marketing claims. These are not, in fact, physically sub 1 nm, despite the bombastic claims.

throw0101d

One of the images has "15 rows of Si atoms". Is there a limit to how small things can go? A single atom? Is there a physical/molecular limit to Moore's Law?

elisbce

Why doesn't the industry use something like transistor density per cubic cm? This would extend to 3d cases and impossible to fake

stackedinserter

Since a transistor can't be smaller than a single atom, maybe it's time to start optimizing our software again.

monirmamoun

Two big problems 1) NOBODY knows what IBM's definition of "sub 1nm" means 2) IBM bullshits so much more than anyone including Intel (remember the "teleportation" ads years ago) that nobody is going to waste time researching what they mean in reality

markhahn

has anyone found a paper with details? also, I was expecting to see cfets mentioned.

victor106

Keep hearing that IBM makes these incredible chips but don’t see anyone using IBM chips. What do they do with them?

alexey-salmin

The most surprising part for me is that IBM still somehow owns silicon labs, I was sure it's effectively a consulting company by now

perching_aix

I wonder at what point does it become deceptive in the legally biting way to market process nodes like this. One can wax and wane a bunch about industry terminology status quo, but this is mental.

jadar

Just to be clear, this doesn't mean that anything on the die actually measures 0.7nm — it means that it's roughly double the density as the previous node generation. At some point the industry decided to keep talking about "nanometers" even though the actual transistor sizes have been decoupled from the node name for years.

georgeburdell

IBM debuts a PDK and some test structures, as they have no production fabs

lizknope

Remember that IBM paid Global Foundries $1.5 billion to take their fabs and design services group. GF did not pay IBM. IBM paid GF to take the fabs away. https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/ibm-to-pay-global...

cubefox

Relevant quote: > IBM sees a path to production in as early as the next 5 years. 5 years is a long time for a product roadmap, so there are probably some significant unsolved problems remaining, and the timeline depends on whether IBM can solve these problems.

IanCutress

For what it's worth, here's my 7000+ word deep dive into the technology. https://morethanmoore.substack.com/p/ibms-announces-07nm-pro...

greenavocado

Not bad, now you just have to fold it 86 times to reach one Planck length. The only issue you'd run into is it would have to be 77 quadrillion kilometers thick