IBM has launched what it claims is the world’s first 2-nanometer chip manufacturing technology, which could be 45% faster than the 7-nanometer chips common in many laptops and phones today and has a 75% higher energy efficiency.
The 2-nanometer chips will be smaller and faster than today’s latest 5-nanometer chips found in premium smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone 12.
The technology unveiled by IBM last Thursday is the basic building block of a chip –a transistor that acts as an electrical on/off switch to form the 1s and 0s of the binary digits on this basis of all modern computing.
Because the switches are very small, they are faster and more energy-efficient but also cause problems with leaking electrons when the switches are to be switched off. IBM scientists were able to drape plates of insulating material only a few nanometers thick to prevent such leaks.
The technology is likely to take several years before consumers to fully enjoy it. IBM, once a chipmaker, is outsourcing its chip production to Samsung Electronics on a large scale.
The company still maintains a chip manufacturing research center in Albany, New York, which makes test runs of chips and has joint technology development agreements with Samsung and Intel Corp to use IBM’s technology for chip manufacturing.
For more information, read the original story in Reuters.