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IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

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Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#121

Post by dgfl »

throw0101d wrote: post #56
wmf wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_Plenty_of_Room_at_th... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_Plenty_of_Room_at_th... Yes, single-atom manipulation has already been demonstrated: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_(atoms) Can you make transistors using that technique? Can you smaller?

You could make maybe ten transistors or so, but no more. That technique is quite literally pushing atoms one by one with a sharp needle. Not scalable, though maybe useful for some quantum computing platforms’ fabrication since we’re at early stages.

And you could write nice sci-fi about subatomic transistors, but forget making them in this reality.

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#122

Post by dgfl »

vitally3643 wrote: post #55
colechristensen wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you can't get smaller than an atom, there is some amount of plausibility of using individual atoms as at least the occasional computing element. Beyond that, engineering a quark-gluon plasma as a processor? I'd watch that Star Trek episode. (we might fantasize about stuff like that but we're roughly monkeys smashing rocks together in a cave vs. building an iPhone sort of gap away from that kind of thing unles…

You could, in principle, use photons and/or electrons. We got pretty damn close in the vacuum tube era, and photonic computing has been a popular research topic for a while. You also have quantum computing, which I think can/does use subatomic particles? Not sure about that one

It doesn’t, no. The most successful platform actually uses superconducting devices as large as millimeters, you can literally see them with the naked eye.

The issue with “just” photons and electrons is that you need something else to force them to behave like you want. And photons are large and non-interacting, really the opposite of what you want for computing. Great for communications of course.

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#123

Post by bonzini »

floxy wrote: post #42
SoftTalker wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why above 1mm do we go by tens instead of thousands? We have centimeter (10 mm) then decimeter (100mm) then meter (1000mm). Then we jump to thousand again (kilometer).

>We have centimeter (10 mm) then decimeter (100mm) Does anyone actually use those? I think I would throw up a little in my mouth if I saw either of those on a mechanical drawing.

Decimeter is used occasionally for densities, because 1 g/cm^3 is the same as 1 kg/dm^3 but the latter is a little easier to imagine. The cube decimeter is also used under the name of... liter.

Likewise, there is also deca- and hecto-. Hectograms are used for shopping.

Decameter (dam, 10 m) is never used, but there is a non-SI unit of area based on it, called the are. Nobody uses the are, but its multiple the hectare (1 square hectometer) is common in some countries when talking about land plots. It's a little less than 2.5 acres, for people in the US.

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#124

Post by measurablefunc »

formerly_proven wrote: post #118
measurablefunc wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a physical quantity per some unit of spatial measurement so the units still don't match up b/c in one case the transistors are stacked per volume & in the other case per area. > Historically, "node" sizes (like 28nm or 7nm) directly correlated to the physical length of a transistor's gate. Today, names like 3nm or 2nm reflect a marketing generation. The actual transistors are significantly larger than these nano…

> It's a physical quantity per some unit of spatial measurement so the units still don't match up b/c in one case the transistors are stacked per volume & in the other case per area. "Planar" and "3D" in this context refers to the shape of the transistors themselves. In a planar transistor the functional structure is spread out in the area, like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MOSFET_functioning_body.s... wh…

[flagged]

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#125

Post by cryptoegorophy »

monirmamoun wrote: post #64

Two big problems 1) NOBODY knows what IBM's definition of "sub 1nm" means 2) IBM bullshits so much more than anyone including Intel (remember the "teleportation" ads years ago) that nobody is going to waste time researching what they mean in reality

Maybe it is done to pump their stock with low effort? It seems that way for many companies.

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#126

Post by vitally3643 »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #66
vitally3643 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and we're already there. We've been there for quite a while, in fact. Once you make the gate of a transistor small/thin enough, quantum effects take over. Electrons will randomly teleport into and through the gate causing the transistor to conduct when it shouldn't. I don't have numbers to hand, but it's on the order of a few atoms wide. There's really nothing that can be done about it either, as far as we know.…

>"The electron wave function will simply just appear wherever it wants (within the electron probability cloud)." I don't know which is more ridiculous, the fact that reality works like this, or, that a species of apes was able to figure this out.

Reality is far, far stranger than we give it credit for. Makes you wonder what other completely bonkers secrets the universe has for us.

And frankly, the sheer insanity of quantum teleportation is why I don't buy any argument that faster than light travel is impossible. Not because "teleportation", but because every time we think we understand the rules of the universe, it laughs in our face. The universe is wacky beyond our wildest dreams.

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#127

Post by girvo »

Barrin92 wrote: post #73
alexey-salmin wrote: post #70

The most surprising part for me is that IBM still somehow owns silicon labs, I was sure it's effectively a consulting company by now

IBM has been the company with the most patent registrations in the US for I think 29 of the last 30 years. They're one of the largest industrial research organizations in the world. They're doing more hard science research than almost anyone else.

I really wish I had followed through when I was ask by some of the guys at IBM Research to apply when we had worked together on a partner project. Though I didn’t have a degree which I seem to remember was a sticking point, this is in the mid 2010s

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#128

Post by colechristensen »

dgfl wrote: post #122
vitally3643 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could, in principle, use photons and/or electrons. We got pretty damn close in the vacuum tube era, and photonic computing has been a popular research topic for a while. You also have quantum computing, which I think can/does use subatomic particles? Not sure about that one

It doesn’t, no. The most successful platform actually uses superconducting devices as large as millimeters, you can literally see them with the naked eye. The issue with “just” photons and electrons is that you need something else to force them to behave like you want. And photons are large and non-interacting, really the opposite of what you want for computing. Great for communications of course.

photons and electrons are the water, not the pipes and valves

what matters is the size of the pumbing

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#129

Post by lizknope »

amelius wrote: post #96
Legend2440 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been decades since published node sizes had any connection to actual feature size. Sadly this is just how it works in the semiconductor industry now.

Who started it?

https://www.eejournal.com/article/no-more-nanometers/

Sometime around 2011 when Intel named their process node 22nm which the gate length was 26nm

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#130

Post by Danox »

macintux wrote: post #102
smokefoot wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is so weird, right? Like what is IBM now and how does a research lab make sense with the rest of their business? The money-making parts of IBM are: legacy software and hardware (declining), consulting (low margin, low leverage), enterprise software (mostly redhat, not really growing). It's hard to explain how IBM research is accretive to any of that.

I don't know enough about their business to say, but I'm thrilled at even the idea that someone might actually value long-term success over quarterly earnings.

IBM at one time had nearly everything in modern tech under their roof like Xerox and squandered it. There is no comeback for them.

They were the second American chip company that said no to Steve Jobs when hinted about designing smaller better chip mobile devices the other two were Motorola and Intel Apple had to eventually do it themselves. Apple Silicon

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