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IBM says it has made working versions of 7nm chips

nytimes.com

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Re: IBM says it has made working versions of 7nm chips

#81

Post by oldmanjay »

userbinator wrote: post #75
minthd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another issue: currently the biggest bottleneck , cost wise, is in lithography - the process we use to draw the transistors into chips. Because of this issue, the two latest generations of chips are more expensive(per transistor) than an older version - stopping moore's law. And moore's law probably won't return to life, until we learn how to solve that problem, which the current work doesn't help with.

I think we've been wasting far too much processing power in inefficient software for the past few decades, and it's only Moore's Law that let it happen for so long. Now that it's coming to an end, maybe we'll see more emphasis on efficiently optimised software and mindful resource usage.

I think you're incorrect and remembering performance that never existed based on shortcomings you glossed over at the time because you have that all too human bias of believing that things were better when you were younger.

Re: IBM says it has made working versions of 7nm chips

#82

Post by Crito »

avz wrote: post #66
POWERfan wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This press release is equivalent to "Scientists Cures Diabetes in Mice" - a breakthrough that happens about a half dozen times a year but has still yet to make it from the lab to the FDA. Chip manufacturers like Intel and IBM have regularly made good on promises of exponential progress for at least a half century. Comparing them to press release-pushing biomedical researchers is tantamount to a slur.

Nitpick: > Comparing them [chip manufacturers] to press release-pushing biomedical researchers is tantamount to a slur. No, it isn't. Slower progress in biomedical research isn't a result of biomedical researchers exhibiting any of the qualities whose unwarranted attribution normally constitutes slur. It is the result of much greater complexity, lower predictability, higher safety requirements and weaker human unders…

The issue is less the progress of biomedical researchers, moreso the discrepancy between the headlines and the actual results.

Most of the blame lies with the scientific press, but the researchers don't seem to mind it all that much either. Misleading or overly-optimistic press releases written by university personal are also the source of much of it.

Re: IBM says it has made working versions of 7nm chips

#83

Post by joshuapants »

QuantumRoar wrote: post #44
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's silicon-germanium (so still has silicon in it). I'm curious what comes after :)

III-V semiconductors like Gallium Arsenide have a high mobility and are probably tested right now in Research labs around the world for CMOS-transistors (it is already in use for something like solar panels). But there's always the problem of how to scale these things as well as silicon based manufacturing. Further out is still some stuff like graphene or carbon nanotubes. Of course, the structure of the transistor i…

Could the vacuum channel transistor[1] also be a contender?

[1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/devices/introducing-...

Re: IBM says it has made working versions of 7nm chips

#84

Post by Keyframe »

userbinator wrote: post #77
StavrosK wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all the clean rooms required, I doubt it, but I don't know.

It's probably more the secrecy of their process that stops such tours from being available. IC manufacturing involves tons of proprietary trade secrets and NDA'd stuff.

I'm not sure what secrets you would gather from a tour since everything happens in enclosed machinery.

Re: IBM says it has made working versions of 7nm chips

#85

Post by mchannon »

tinco wrote: post #53
monk_e_boy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have an ultra-clean room. It has a window.

My university has clean rooms, they have windows, the hallways have windows too so you can peek in from outside. Always great to show to visitors :) (at night they have weirdly colored lighting, pink, purple, so it looks really funky, no idea why)

Clean rooms that work with semiconductors use light-sensitive photoresists. I've always dealt with yellow windows and yellow covers over the lights, though in theory pink would accomplish the same thing: keeping blue light off the wafers while you're working with them.

The concept is not at all dissimilar to old-fashioned darkrooms in photography. Outside light will wash out your image.

Re: IBM says it has made working versions of 7nm chips

#86

Post by Keyframe »

valarauca1 wrote: post #59
jtchang wrote: post #4

No mention of Intel anywhere in the article and how far along they are. Also 7nm blows my mind. I mean current CPUs already blow my mind with how tiny the transistors are getting. And specially stabilized buildings? "NOBODY MOVE! WE'RE ETCHING!"

The M68k was produced on a 3500nm process, which at 7nm you can fit 2 whole M68k dyes within an original M68k's transistor.

That would mean that with 7nm process once could fit ~136000 (68000*2) M68ks in its original dye. Mind-boggling.

Re: IBM says it has made working versions of 7nm chips

#87

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

timboslice wrote: post #72
minthd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another issue: currently the biggest bottleneck , cost wise, is in lithography - the process we use to draw the transistors into chips. Because of this issue, the two latest generations of chips are more expensive(per transistor) than an older version - stopping moore's law. And moore's law probably won't return to life, until we learn how to solve that problem, which the current work doesn't help with.

This is where 450mm wafers and EUV (extreme ultraviolet lithography) were supposed to come in. EUV relieves the need for double patterning and the tremendous additional costs that entails (and was used to manufacture this 7nm chip). The CEO of Applied Materials, Gary Dickerson, has stated that the 450mm wafer timeline “has definitely been pushed out from a timing standpoint.” That’s incredibly important, because the…

And for comparison, scale fans, let's remember that we're talking about making 7nm features on wafers that are nearly a foot and a half wide, using near-as-dammit x-ray wavelengths.

A few teething problems would be expected.

7nm has been struggling for a while, 5nm is likely to be late, and I don't think anyone really knows what happens after that.

Longer term, industrial manufacture is probably going to have to move to something exotic like nano-assembly of individual atoms, with some extra finagling to work around tunnelling effects. (Easier said than done...)

Re: IBM says it has made working versions of 7nm chips

#88

Post by dougmany »

userbinator wrote: post #75
minthd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another issue: currently the biggest bottleneck , cost wise, is in lithography - the process we use to draw the transistors into chips. Because of this issue, the two latest generations of chips are more expensive(per transistor) than an older version - stopping moore's law. And moore's law probably won't return to life, until we learn how to solve that problem, which the current work doesn't help with.

I think we've been wasting far too much processing power in inefficient software for the past few decades, and it's only Moore's Law that let it happen for so long. Now that it's coming to an end, maybe we'll see more emphasis on efficiently optimised software and mindful resource usage.

This great article supports that. http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/the-death-of-...

It has a great graph of engineering effort vs Moore's law which made it cheaper to just wait for a faster chip then put in the effort.

Re: IBM says it has made working versions of 7nm chips

#89

Post by mikeyouse »

vegabook wrote: post #69
avz wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpick: > Comparing them [chip manufacturers] to press release-pushing biomedical researchers is tantamount to a slur. No, it isn't. Slower progress in biomedical research isn't a result of biomedical researchers exhibiting any of the qualities whose unwarranted attribution normally constitutes slur. It is the result of much greater complexity, lower predictability, higher safety requirements and weaker human unders…

The point is that most semiconductor predictions come true, whereas biomed predictions are much less reliable. Unfortunately, that is a reflection on the latter's practitioners as they are aware of their poor odds yet still publish.

I think this is unfair. Scientists often have a narrow-scope breakthrough in an extremely technical area and when they're asked to dumb it down for a wider audience, the tech press / university PR team runs wild. Something like curing diabetes is going to taken hundreds or thousands of small incremental improvements and breakthroughs so when they say "Could lead to a cure!!" they're usually correct but the nuance is often missed.

Re: IBM says it has made working versions of 7nm chips

#90

Post by ethbro »

oldmanjay wrote: post #81
userbinator wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we've been wasting far too much processing power in inefficient software for the past few decades, and it's only Moore's Law that let it happen for so long. Now that it's coming to an end, maybe we'll see more emphasis on efficiently optimised software and mindful resource usage.

I think you're incorrect and remembering performance that never existed based on shortcomings you glossed over at the time because you have that all too human bias of believing that things were better when you were younger.

I understand what you're saying, but do you really think most of a modern Android (to take the theme to its Javaesque extreme) stack is the most efficient way to accomplish processing?

Compare that to some of the code people ran through 6502-derivatives.

Abstraction may be more efficient in terms of programmer time, and performance efficiency may be high enough so as to be immaterial, but the two shouldn't be conflated.

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