IBM claims it is the world’s first sub-1 nanometer chip technology

“This 40% success will eventually extend itself into AI systems, which require high bandwidth and efficiency,” Gambetta said.

Road map of the sub-1 nanometer node

As a company that makes chip technology research, IBM does not make commercial chips that can be embedded AI data centers or consumer goods. In fact, IBM has partnered with semiconductor companies such as Rapidus in Japan to mass production its previous generation of 2-nanometer node chips based on nanosheet architecture, or to marketing related technology in some agreement with Samsung in South Korea.

Other companies have followed IBM’s pioneering work without direct cooperation. For example, Taiwan’s TSMC independently manufacture nanosheet transistors for its owner 2-nanometer node technology.

“The nanosheet has become the basis for the next generation of scaling transistors,” he said Calling BuVice President of IBM Semiconductors Global R&D and IBM Research, at a press conference. “Today, the nanosheet is adopted by all the leading devices for 3-nanometer chips and 2-nanometer chips.”

IBM declined to name the companies it would partner with to sell the latest sub-1-nanometer node technology. But Bu expects that commercial chips made at sub-1-nanometer nodes and incorporating new nanostack architectures could begin production within the next five years and possibly within a decade.

“It will replace the nanosheet as it is today in the core, whether it’s CPUs or GPUs,” Bu said. “In ten years, this will be another way we’ve created and helped companies to change.”