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IBM’s world-first 5nm chip indicates EUV lithography is ready for primetime

arstechnica.co.uk

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Re: IBM’s world-first 5nm chip indicates EUV lithography is ready for primetime

#21

Post by davidf18 »

whazor wrote: post #5

> EUV has been waiting in the wings for about 10 years now, always just a few months away from commercial viability. This is the best sign yet that ASML's EUV tech is finally ready for primetime. This is the real message, because creating 5nm chips was already possible[1]. However, creating them massively on scale with the ASML EUV machines is the real challenge. [1] https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/5080-imec-c…

It is possible/probable that these processes are used by NSA/DARPA, military applications. In many of these situations performance well trumps volume/cost issues.

Re: IBM’s world-first 5nm chip indicates EUV lithography is ready for primetime

#22

Post by mstresh »

kowdermeister wrote: post #4
elorant wrote: post #2

So, what happens when we reach 1nm? Can we go even lower or we'd need a paradigm shift?

Most likely, yes: Using light: http://gizmodo.com/a-new-light-based-transistor-could-comple... Building on memristors: http://www.memristor.org/reference/research/13/what-are-memr... http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/the-mysteriou... Neural network inspiried chips: http://www.research.ibm.com/articles/brain-chip.shtml I think we will see some breakthrough after the CPU industry goes into an existential c…

About using light: I don't believe light will replace the transistors performing logic except in a few niche applications (e.g. [1]). Light is physically constrained by it's wavelength. It's difficult to build interacting structures smaller than a few hundred nm and it's difficult to build light-generating elements with even shorter wavelengths--you're approaching the Deep UV and X-rays. Maybe you can get to the tens to low hundreds of nm with plasmonics, but this is still far from the realm in which it makes sense to replace an electronic transistor with an optical transistor. Furthermore, it's also difficult to achieve strong nonlinearities in optical systems, especially silicon. You need some sort of nonlinear element for switching.

Light-based communication probably will replace certain I/O blocks on chip. These tend to be quite large in terms of area after considering power and ESD constraints.

[1] Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13051984

Re: IBM’s world-first 5nm chip indicates EUV lithography is ready for primetime

#23

Post by vasili111 »

igravious wrote: post #7
elorant wrote: post #2

So, what happens when we reach 1nm? Can we go even lower or we'd need a paradigm shift?

1nm isn't a special number just because it is 1. A nm is one billionth of a metre which itself is an arbitrary length so 1nm is a purely arbitrary cut-off. What you should be asking is how many molecules of silicon and silicon-germanium can be packed into the spaces being talked about at the different fabrication levels of 14nm, 10nm, 7nm, 5nm, and so on. Once you have that information then you can ask what is the sm…

>My prediction is that, as unimaginable as it seems, we'll be able to scale down to the physical limits of the materials.

What are these physical limits of the materials?

Re: IBM’s world-first 5nm chip indicates EUV lithography is ready for primetime

#24

Post by Animats »

davidf18 wrote: post #20
kurthr wrote: post #16

I wish this wasn't so laughable. What this really shows is that IBM has high margins for their chips, and a long standing tolerance for absurdly low yields and long wafer turn times. That they announce "production" before any of the other fabs is more likely do to PR needs than real technical advancement. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/ibm-unveils-industry... EUV has been available for years and no doubt TSM…

I suspect that one way or the other the military and spy agencies will be funding the further development for national security and weapons reasons. It may not be known, but they are (or will be) funding either directly or indirectly.

The US military hasn't been a significant driver of electronic technology since the 1980s. They just don't have the volume to affect the technology path. Military electronics tends to lag commercial, because the life cycles are longer. The USAF's big electronics problem is obtaining supplies of obsolete parts.

The pure military stuff tends to be in the sensor space. DARPA has some projects to build much better accelerometers and gyros on ICs. They want cheap inertial navigation to back up GPS.

It's possible to reach much higher densities by writing an IC with an electron beam. This is slow, but useful for one-off jobs. DoD is known to be using that.[1] "DoD foundries make a wide variety of custom chips in small quantities - the exact opposite of commercial practice." Interestingly, the USAF is doing this partly because they don't trust off-the-shelf chips not to have "backdoors".

[1] http://www.multibeamcorp.com/PR_MB20170525.htm

Re: IBM’s world-first 5nm chip indicates EUV lithography is ready for primetime

#25

Post by Nokinside »

davidf18 wrote: post #21
whazor wrote: post #5

> EUV has been waiting in the wings for about 10 years now, always just a few months away from commercial viability. This is the best sign yet that ASML's EUV tech is finally ready for primetime. This is the real message, because creating 5nm chips was already possible[1]. However, creating them massively on scale with the ASML EUV machines is the real challenge. [1] https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/5080-imec-c…

It is possible/probable that these processes are used by NSA/DARPA, military applications. In many of these situations performance well trumps volume/cost issues.

Not really. NSA/DARPA have no need for small batches of very expensive circuits manufactured with 5 nm.

They need large volumes of cost effective processors as well. Manufacturing their own special purpose asics with older technology is more likely.

Re: IBM’s world-first 5nm chip indicates EUV lithography is ready for primetime

#26

Post by snovv_crash »

b34r wrote: post #11
igravious wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1nm isn't a special number just because it is 1. A nm is one billionth of a metre which itself is an arbitrary length so 1nm is a purely arbitrary cut-off. What you should be asking is how many molecules of silicon and silicon-germanium can be packed into the spaces being talked about at the different fabrication levels of 14nm, 10nm, 7nm, 5nm, and so on. Once you have that information then you can ask what is the sm…

According to my very unscientific googling, a silicon atom is approximately 111 picometers, or just over 1/10 of a nanometer. So if we can make stable gates with only 3-4 Si atoms, we can definitely go below 1nm.

Don't forget you need a doping atom as well.

Re: IBM’s world-first 5nm chip indicates EUV lithography is ready for primetime

#27

Post by kurthr »

undersuit wrote: post #18
kurthr wrote: post #16

I wish this wasn't so laughable. What this really shows is that IBM has high margins for their chips, and a long standing tolerance for absurdly low yields and long wafer turn times. That they announce "production" before any of the other fabs is more likely do to PR needs than real technical advancement. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/07/ibm-unveils-industry... EUV has been available for years and no doubt TSM…

>Will we have 1-3nm transistors? Yes. Will they be commercially viable? Probably No. Why not? We can only stack our layers so much, eventually the 1-3nm range of transistors will become useful to give technology another squeeze before having to learn how to layer a bizarre number of layers.

Although there is hope that EUV will help control design rules, the current expectation for developing a 10nm design is in the $200M range. It's expected to double at 7nm and again at 5nm. Try amortizing that over anything but an iPhone, Samsung, or PC volumes.

Re: IBM’s world-first 5nm chip indicates EUV lithography is ready for primetime

#28

Post by sqeaky »

vasili111 wrote: post #23
igravious wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1nm isn't a special number just because it is 1. A nm is one billionth of a metre which itself is an arbitrary length so 1nm is a purely arbitrary cut-off. What you should be asking is how many molecules of silicon and silicon-germanium can be packed into the spaces being talked about at the different fabrication levels of 14nm, 10nm, 7nm, 5nm, and so on. Once you have that information then you can ask what is the sm…

>My prediction is that, as unimaginable as it seems, we'll be able to scale down to the physical limits of the materials. What are these physical limits of the materials?

Whatever they are, there will be some other materials that will let get lower....

Until we are building on a single atom, and even then maybe we can go smaller.

Re: IBM’s world-first 5nm chip indicates EUV lithography is ready for primetime

#29

Post by undersuit »

kurthr wrote: post #27
undersuit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Will we have 1-3nm transistors? Yes. Will they be commercially viable? Probably No. Why not? We can only stack our layers so much, eventually the 1-3nm range of transistors will become useful to give technology another squeeze before having to learn how to layer a bizarre number of layers.

Although there is hope that EUV will help control design rules, the current expectation for developing a 10nm design is in the $200M range. It's expected to double at 7nm and again at 5nm. Try amortizing that over anything but an iPhone, Samsung, or PC volumes.

I'm just arguing that lacking an alternative to silicon transistors, we'll hit limits in die stacking and architecture optimizations that will make < 3nm lucrative for some applications.

Re: IBM’s world-first 5nm chip indicates EUV lithography is ready for primetime

#30

Post by kowdermeister »

mstresh wrote: post #22
kowdermeister wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely, yes: Using light: http://gizmodo.com/a-new-light-based-transistor-could-comple... Building on memristors: http://www.memristor.org/reference/research/13/what-are-memr... http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/the-mysteriou... Neural network inspiried chips: http://www.research.ibm.com/articles/brain-chip.shtml I think we will see some breakthrough after the CPU industry goes into an existential c…

About using light: I don't believe light will replace the transistors performing logic except in a few niche applications (e.g. [1]). Light is physically constrained by it's wavelength. It's difficult to build interacting structures smaller than a few hundred nm and it's difficult to build light-generating elements with even shorter wavelengths--you're approaching the Deep UV and X-rays. Maybe you can get to the tens…

It's not a goal I guess to shrink these "photon CPU-s" to 5nm at start.

> but this is still far from the realm in which it makes sense to replace an electronic transistor with an optical transistor

The electromagnetic spectrum even at mid-near infrared wavelengths frequencies could help chips operate on the THz scale! You might list a mountain of reasons it can't work, but it's just fun to imagine that it might be possible to turn a cycle of light to an operation.

You can build interesting things at that scale, in this research they also refer to communication as you mentioned [1]

Thanks for that link, I downloaded the paper :)

[1] http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2011/05/31/nanoscale-waveguide-for...

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