IBM UNVEILS 0.7 NANOMETRE CHIP WITH 100 BILLION TRANSISTORS

IBM announced a semiconductor featuring nearly 100 billion transistors on Thursday, using what the company describes as its latest technological advancement. The chip measures 0.7 nanometres, smaller than IBM's previous generation 2-nanometre processor unveiled in 2021. The new chip employs IBM's nanostack architecture, which arranges transistor nanosheets vertically rather than horizontally as in the earlier design.

IBM conducted experiments comparing the 0.7-nanometre chip against the 2-nanometre version and reported performance improvements of up to 50 per cent, alongside energy efficiency gains of 70 per cent. The nanostack architecture also allows for a 40 per cent smaller die size for SRAM, a type of memory used frequently in artificial intelligence applications. Huiming Bu, vice president of IBM semiconductor research and development, stated that energy efficiency represents a critical component for AI development. IBM is working with Rapidus, a Japanese foundry, to prepare manufacturing capabilities.

The company states it "sees a path to production" within five years. IBM's announcement comes as semiconductor manufacturers including Nvidia and AMD compete to supply processors for AI applications, with demand growing as developers train increasingly advanced models. Packing more transistors into smaller physical spaces enables higher processing power whilst reducing electrical consumption, a priority as data centres supporting artificial intelligence require substantial energy resources.