IBM announced that it has reached a new phase of research in semiconductor technology. The company announced that it has developed the world’s first sub-1 nanometer functional chip design. Prepared with the new architecture called “Nanostack”, the 7 angstrom, or approximately 0.7 nanometer, prototype was built on the 2 nanometer nanosheet design introduced by IBM in 2021. The company states that this new approach provides higher transistor density while also offering significant gains in performance and energy efficiency.
According to the information shared by IBM, the new design reaches twice the transistor density compared to the previous 2 nanometer chip. There are approximately 100 billion transistors on a silicon chip the size of a human fingernail. The company states that the increased number of transistors can provide up to 50 percent higher performance or up to 70 percent better energy efficiency than 2 nanometer designs in the same technology class. These values are based on IBM’s own laboratory measurements for the research prototype.
IBM Research Director Jay Gambetta said that the new architecture aims to limit the increase in energy consumption while increasing computing power. According to Gambetta, this approach enables the development of more powerful systems in the future and can contribute to energy efficiency in many areas, from data centers to artificial intelligence applications. However, it should be noted that the design in question has not yet become a commercial product and is a technology developed in research laboratories.
Nanostack architecture stacks transistors vertically
IBM’s new approach extends the nanosheet transistor technology it previously developed with a different structure, rather than completely replacing it. In nanostack architecture, transistors are not only placed in the horizontal plane; In addition, they are stacked vertically and positioned gradually relative to each other. Thus, it becomes possible to use more transistors within the same surface area.
According to the technical details shared by the company, each transistor consists of three nanosheet layers approximately five nanometers thick. There is a gap of approximately nine nanometers between the layers. IBM states that each nanosheet consists of only 15 rows of silicon atoms. The ability to produce at this scale also reveals the level of precision reached by modern semiconductor production. In addition, it is known that as smaller production geometries develop, issues such as production difficulties, cost and efficiency become more critical.
IBM does not expect the new architecture to go into mass production in the short term. The company estimates it could take about five years to begin commercial production of nanostack-based chips. However, in the semiconductor industry, moving new production technologies from the laboratory to the factory can often take longer than planned. For this reason, there is a possibility that the announced schedule may change depending on the technology development process.
On the other hand, Japanese chip manufacturer Rapidus, with which IBM collaborated to commercialize its existing nanosheet technology, had previously announced that it aims to start mass production of 2-nanometer chips in the second half of 2027. Considering this schedule, it is expected that the 0.7 nanometer level design will require a longer development period to reach widespread production.
IBM stated that it will share more detailed plans for the commercialization of nanostack architecture in the future. The company argues that this architecture can offer chip manufacturers a new way to scale to develop more powerful and more efficient processors in the coming years. However, the transformation of such technologies in the research phase into commercial products; Manufacturing costs continue to depend on many technical factors, such as yield rates and advances in semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Therefore, how nanostack architecture will find a response in the industry will become clear as a result of the production and commercialization studies to be carried out in the coming years.