2 nm chips coming up
2 nm wafer. © IBM Research.
In the race to engrave chips ever more finely, IBM has taken first place. The company announced that it has developed the technology to produce 2nm processors. Most modern processors are 7nm-based, and some, like Apple’s M1 made by TSMC, are even 5nm-based. IBM says the new 2nm chips will improve performance by 45% using the same amount of power, or use 75% less power while maintaining the same level of performance, compared to current 7nm chips. To give an idea of the scale, IBM could fit 50 billion transistors on a 2nm chip the size of a fingernail (with a maximum density of 333 million transistors per square millimeter). These chips are based on nanosheet technology, in which a transistor is made up of three stacked horizontal silicon sheets, each only a few nanometers thick. Among the benefits, IBM promises the chip will quadruple cell phone battery life, dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of data centers and accelerate laptop computer function. Mukesh Khare, at IBM’s Albany Research Center in New York, has hinted that the first 2nm chips could roll out of factories as early as 2024.
⇨ IEEE Spectrum, Dexter Johnson, “IBM Introduces the World’s First 2-nm Node Chip.”
2021-05-06
