IBM builds 5nm chip with better performance and energy efficiency
We haven't even seen 7nm chips in mass production, however, IBM has already announced that it has managed to build a 5nm one.
What's even more important than its size, is the fact that it is much, much faster than the 7nm one. How faster, you ask? Well, 7nm chips can hold 20 billion transistors. These 5nm chips can hold as much as 30 billion transistors.
The building process is similar (ultraviolet ligthography), but the transistor design was replaced with stacks of nanosheets.
IBM says these chips will be much faster than anything we have today, and that's a given. But what's also important is IBMs claim that these chips will require significantly less energy. Smartphone devices powered with these babies could have "two to three times" more battery life than what we have today.
And in terms of how long we’ll actually have to wait to see -- well, probably a few years.
"For business and society to meet the demands of cognitive and cloud computing in the coming years, advancement in semiconductor technology is essential," says Arvind Krishna, senior vice president, Hybrid Cloud, and director, IBM Research.
"That’s why IBM aggressively pursues new and different architectures and materials that push the limits of this industry, and brings them to market in technologies like mainframes and our cognitive systems."
You can find out more about these new chips on this link.
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