IBM research promises 50 percent improvement in processor performance

Moore's Law, the rule describing the steady growth of computing power, seems to have been under threat of late. But work by an alliance led by IBM research could see it safe for a few years yet.

Researchers have produced the first 7nm (nanometre -- one billionth of a meter) test chips. What does this mean? Current chips have components with a width of 14 or 20nm so a 7nm chip will allow many more components to be included.

The breakthrough could result in the ability to place more than 20 billion transistors -- effectively tiny switches -- on a fingernail-sized chip. Industry experts believe that 7nm technology will be crucial to meeting the anticipated demands of future cloud computing and big data systems, cognitive computing, mobile products and other emerging technologies.

"For business and society to get the most out of tomorrow's computers and devices, scaling to 7nm and beyond is essential," says Arvind Krishna, senior vice president and director of IBM Research. "That's why IBM has remained committed to an aggressive basic research agenda that continually pushes the limits of semiconductor technology. Working with our partners, this milestone builds on decades of research that has set the pace for the microelectronics industry, and positions us to advance our leadership for years to come".

To achieve the higher performance, lower power and scaling benefits promised by 7nm technology, researchers have had to bypass conventional semiconductor manufacturing approaches. Among the novel processes and techniques pioneered by the IBM Research alliance are a number of industry-first innovations. These include Silicon Germanium (SiGe) channel transistors and Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography integration at multiple levels.

If translated to production these techniques and scaling could result in at least a 50 percent power/performance improvement for the next generation of mainframe and POWER systems that will power the big data, cloud and mobile era.

Image Credit: Darryl Bautista/Feature Photo Service for IBM