ALBANY, N.Y., May 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM
(NYSE: IBM) today unveiled a breakthrough in semiconductor
design and process with the development of the world's first chip
announced with 2 nanometer (nm) nanosheet technology.
Semiconductors play critical roles in everything from computing, to
appliances, to communication devices, transportation systems, and
critical infrastructure.
"The IBM innovation reflected in this new 2 nm chip is essential to
the entire semiconductor and IT industry."
Demand for increased chip performance and energy efficiency
continues to rise, especially in the era of hybrid cloud, AI, and
the Internet of Things. IBM's new 2 nm chip technology helps
advance the state-of-the-art in the semiconductor industry,
addressing this growing demand. It is projected to achieve 45
percent higher performance, or 75 percent lower energy use, than
today's most advanced 7 nm node chipsi.
The potential benefits of these advanced 2 nm chips could
include:
- Quadrupling cell phone battery life, only requiring
users to charge their devices every four daysii.
- Slashing the carbon footprint of data centers, which
account for one percent of global energy useiii.
Changing all of their servers to 2 nm-based processors could
potentially reduce that number significantly.
- Drastically speeding up a laptop's functions, ranging
from quicker processing in applications, to assisting in language
translation more easily, to faster internet access.
- Contributing to faster object detection and
reaction time in autonomous vehicles like self-driving cars.
"The IBM innovation reflected in this new 2 nm chip is essential
to the entire semiconductor and IT industry," said Darío Gil, SVP
and Director of IBM Research. "It is the product of IBM's approach
of taking on hard tech challenges and a demonstration of how
breakthroughs can result from sustained investments and a
collaborative R&D ecosystem approach."
IBM at the forefront of semiconductor innovation
This
latest breakthrough builds on decades of IBM leadership in
semiconductor innovation. The company's semiconductor development
efforts are based at its research lab located at the Albany
Nanotech Complex in Albany, NY,
where IBM scientists work in close collaboration with public and
private sector partners to push the boundaries of logic scaling and
semiconductor capabilities.
This collaborative approach to innovation makes IBM Research
Albany a world-leading ecosystem for semiconductor research and
creates a strong innovation pipeline, helping to address
manufacturing demands and accelerate the growth of the global chip
industry.
IBM's legacy of semiconductor breakthroughs also includes the
first implementation of 7 nm and 5 nm process technologies, single
cell DRAM, the Dennard Scaling Laws, chemically amplified
photoresists, copper interconnect wiring, Silicon on Insulator
technology, multi core microprocessors, High-k gate dielectrics,
embedded DRAM, and 3D chip stacking. IBM's first commercialized
offering including IBM Research 7 nm advancements will debut later
this year in IBM POWER10-based IBM Power Systems.
50 billion transistors on a fingernail-sized
chip
Increasing the number of transistors per
chip can make them smaller, faster, more reliable, and more
efficient. The 2 nm design demonstrates the advanced scaling of
semiconductors using IBM's nanosheet technology. Its architecture
is an industry first. Developed less than four years after IBM
announced its milestone 5 nm design, this latest breakthrough will
allow the 2 nm chip to fit up to 50 billion transistors on a chip
the size of a fingernail.
More transistors on a chip also means processor designers have
more options to infuse core-level innovations to improve
capabilities for leading edge workloads like AI and cloud
computing, as well as new pathways for hardware-enforced security
and encryption. IBM is already implementing other innovative
core-level enhancements in the latest generations of IBM hardware,
like IBM POWER10 and IBM z15.
About IBM
IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI,
and business services provider, helping clients in more than 175
countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline
business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in
their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate
entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial
services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid
cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital
transformations quickly, efficiently, and securely. IBM's
breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing,
industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver
open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is
backed by IBM's legendary commitment to trust, transparency,
responsibility, inclusivity, and service.
For more information, visit www.ibm.com
Media Contacts
Bethany Hill
McCarthy, bethany@ibm.com
IBM Research
Sam Ponedal,
sponeda@us.ibm.com
IBM Cognitive Systems
i Based on the projected industry standard scaling
roadmap
ii Based on current usage statistics for 7 nm-based cell
phones
iii
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6481/984
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SOURCE IBM