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IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

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Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Population density isn’t planar, eg, why cities are denser than towns: their centers are more than 2D.

Population density is literally measured over a planar metric: people/km^2 You are suggesting it's measured over a cube volume?

3d population density would be an interesting measure, though. It would provide a better feel for how cramped a populated volume actually is.

It would have to be the displacement volume, to account for cities with only a few really tall buildings, and also somehow adjusted for buildings with high ceilings.

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My read on it was that they are trying to imply a transistor density (in a 2D plane sense) that is comparable to a 1nm process? But they achieve that through stacking (3D, not 2D) since the features aren't actually anywhere near 1nm?

If they're adding a dimension, the marketing should reflect that. I know they won't go for an anything that makes as much sense as 5nm3, so I vote for "1nm hyper space"

Should population density in cities also be measured in hab/km³ rather than hab/km²?

We are used to stacking people vertically in cities.

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#184
post #10

> logic technology can extend for the first time below the 1 nm node, advancing the era of angstrom-level scaling, where dimensions approach the size of individual atoms. While transistor nodes now refer to a generation of manufacturing technology versus an exact physical dimension, IBM’s 0.7 nm technology—also referred to as 7 angstroms—demonstrates how continued scaling remains possible. Continuing the well establi…

Unlike marketing terms, "nm density" is actually useful measure. It describes density measure where you can compare it to planar transistors from the 28-nanometer (28 nm) node around 2010 to 2011 and before. A "0.7 nm" node has equivalent transistor density as if we could have shrunk standard flat transistor node down to 0.7 nanometers.

Why is density any bit important? All I care about is the price per transistor, and the power usage(mostly gate charge and leakage current?).

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike marketing terms, "nm density" is actually useful measure. It describes density measure where you can compare it to planar transistors from the 28-nanometer (28 nm) node around 2010 to 2011 and before. A "0.7 nm" node has equivalent transistor density as if we could have shrunk standard flat transistor node down to 0.7 nanometers.

Why is density any bit important? All I care about is the price per transistor, and the power usage(mostly gate charge and leakage current?).

Density does directly scale with both of those in the form of more chips per die (=> lower cost) and smaller capacitance (=> less dynamic power dissipation).

If you want to reduce "effectiveness" of some process down to a single number, then density is far from the worst metric to pick.

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Isn't consulting one of the most high-margin areas in general?

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#187
post #171
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what it means. Something isn't automatically bullshit because it's outside your field of expertise.

People love to hate on IBM, ask why it is relevant today, while several of their beloved FOSS projects are in some way, form or fashion, made possible with IBM's money.

which beloved FOSS were funded by IBM?

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#189
post #187
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People love to hate on IBM, ask why it is relevant today, while several of their beloved FOSS projects are in some way, form or fashion, made possible with IBM's money.

which beloved FOSS were funded by IBM?

They effectively funded the legal defense against SCO that was trying to claim ownership of the IPR to Unix/Linux.

They bought and funded (and still fund) Redhat which funds Fedora and GNOME and Wayland and systemd.

Re: IBM debuts sub-1 nanometer chip technology

#190

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.…

This is why I suspect we will be neat the upper limits of this around the late 2030's. We are just running too close to the fundamental limits. And so far there isn't anything really radical even on the horizon as a solution for this.

Aren't we reaching the point where there is no "solution" in terms of density and physical dimensions?

It's like the speed of light being a constant, or the Planck length being the smallest that can be subject to standard physics.

Quantum computing, which is a complete change in the actual physical model of computing, appears to be the only alternative.

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