IBM Unveils World's First Sub-1 Nanometer Chip Technology

(RTTNews) - International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) has unveiled the world's first sub-1 nanometer semiconductor technology, introducing a 0.7 nanometer (7 angstrom) chip featuring a new three-dimensional "nanostack" transistor architecture.

The breakthrough is designed to overcome the physical limits of traditional chip scaling and could pave the way for the next generation of artificial intelligence, cloud computing and advanced electronics.

The prototype packs nearly 100 billion transistors onto a chip the size of a fingernail, almost doubling the transistor density of IBM's 2 nm chip introduced in 2021. According to IBM, the new technology could deliver up to 50% higher performance or 70% greater energy efficiency than its 2 nm chips.

IBM said the nanostack architecture vertically stacks and staggers nanosheet transistors, allowing greater transistor density while enabling different material combinations to optimize performance and power efficiency. The company also reported a 40% improvement in SRAM scaling, supporting higher-bandwidth AI workloads.

The research was conducted at IBM's semiconductor research facility in Albany, New York, alongside partners including ASML, Lam Research, Tokyo Electron and SCREEN Semiconductor Solutions.

IBM expects the earliest commercial adoption of its nanostack technology within the next five years, extending its semiconductor roadmap into the angstrom era.