IBM says it has made working versions of 7nm chips • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by gshubert17 » Thu, Jul 09, 2015, 1:32 PM UTC

rprospero wrote: post #61

puranjay wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These folks are trying something like that: https://saybyebuy.com/ As an idea, I feel it's wonderful. It would massively reduce wastage.

What scares me about proposals like this is that it's further stratification of society into two separate classes: those who actually own everything and those who must appease the owners. For example, I can put £40 in my sock drawer every month and, in eight months, I could buy a PS4 and use it for the rest of my life. I could then start save that £40 toward a different purchase. Alternately, I could go with the site…

> Similarly, I can buy a DVD and watch it forever, instead of shelling out for Netflix each month and hoping that they don't drop that title.

I agree and I have piles of DVDs to show for it. Here's my problem. One DVD is a fine example, but what about 10, 100, 1000? At some point, it's worth it to use Netflix for storage.

I also have stacks of VHS tapes, and audio cassettes and LPs. The life of my playback hardware is finite. I can refresh the hardware or somehow try to copy my old media to new media. I'll have to think what I might have done different if something like Netflix had existed when I started buying audio and video to own and accumulate.

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

#72

Post by timboslice » Thu, Jul 09, 2015, 1:40 PM UTC

minthd wrote: post #65

awalton wrote: post #43

Let's all realize that all of these research branches have been playing around with 10nm and 7nm chips for years now - the fact IBM cobbled together some working chip isn't surprising. Getting it to production is really the vastly more important part. 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…

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 economics of 450mm wafers were tied directly to the economics of another struggling technology — EUV. EUV is the follow-up to 193nm lithography that’s used for etching wafers, but it’s a technology that’s spent over a decade mired in technological problems and major ramp-up concerns.

Toasting to the death of Moore's Law: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBrEx-FINEI

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

#73

Post by BostonEnginerd » Thu, Jul 09, 2015, 1:49 PM UTC

LoSboccacc wrote: post #21

Still in research phase, from a company known for having 10% yields last time they innovated in the processor space Also hasn't Ibm just sold its division to global foundries? So are they double dipping as usual by licensing them new tech separately?

IBM just sold their division to GF -- but they're maintaining an R&D only operation. IBM, GF and Samsung are all part of the "Common Platform" to share R&D costs:

http://www.commonplatform.com/

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

#74

Post by acomjean » Thu, Jul 09, 2015, 2:44 PM UTC

vegabook wrote: post #45

awalton wrote: post #43

Let's all realize that all of these research branches have been playing around with 10nm and 7nm chips for years now - the fact IBM cobbled together some working chip isn't surprising. Getting it to production is really the vastly more important part. 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 Ars article you refer to appears to be fairly bullish on IBM's process technology and in particular the extreme ultraviolet lithography which has been problematic elsewhere. IBM has deep history of fundamental research turning into real product: just look at magneto-resistive drive heads as one example. I am much less sceptical than you that this company which has proven over many decades that it can drive fundam…

I worked at IBM research for a bit (TJ Watson center Yorktown), when Gerstner was the CEO. They had PHDs chemists and physicists and mathematicians working on all sorts of things chip related. They had a mini fab in the building. I remember them testing building vibration levels.

Turning technology into something that can me manufactured and sold was something was something definetely on the mind of research. IBM was spending 6 Billion a year on research and they were looking for more results out of it.

They knew that an discovery/invention was good, but one that could be brought to market was better. The licensed a lot of their tech to the chip machine manufacturers if I remember correctly. Plus back in those days IBM had chip making facilities.

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

#75

Post by userbinator » Thu, Jul 09, 2015, 3:08 PM UTC

minthd wrote: post #65

awalton wrote: post #43

Let's all realize that all of these research branches have been playing around with 10nm and 7nm chips for years now - the fact IBM cobbled together some working chip isn't surprising. Getting it to production is really the vastly more important part. 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…

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.

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

#76

Post by Gravityloss » Thu, Jul 09, 2015, 3:13 PM UTC

JoachimS wrote: post #11

Frenchgeek wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the way we're going, I wonder how soon it will be cheaper and easier to build a cpu plant in orbit...

One covered in lead to protect the lito from high energy particles. This might be the time when pushing an asteroid into one of the Lagrange points and hollowed out would be useful. Go SF dreams, go! (Where is Musk when we need him?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_Shield_Facility

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

#77

Post by userbinator » Thu, Jul 09, 2015, 3:13 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #35

ximeng wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible for general members of the public to arrange tours of microprocessor fabs anywhere?

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.

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

#78

Post by ceequof » Thu, Jul 09, 2015, 3:17 PM UTC

POWERfan wrote: post #47

awalton wrote: post #43

Let's all realize that all of these research branches have been playing around with 10nm and 7nm chips for years now - the fact IBM cobbled together some working chip isn't surprising. Getting it to production is really the vastly more important part. 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…

>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.

Color me astonished that a brand new account named POWERfan is vigorously defending IBM in a online discussion forum.

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

#79

Post by escherplex » Thu, Jul 09, 2015, 3:18 PM UTC

NathanthePie wrote: post #68

tinco wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

It's possible that when nobody is working in the room, the lights aid in maintaining a sterile environment. At specific wavelengths (~245-265 nm), (UV) light inactivates quite a few living things. As light is quantized, the purpleish color you see is due to e- stepping down.

My UVC bulbs deployed in a FL home water treatment system pipe out UV in the region of 253.7nm. An ophthalmologist friend pointed out that unfiltered long term exposure to these wavelengths first catalyzes conjunctivitis (pink eye) then conditions go down hill from there. It's suggested that you don't stare directly at sources of this purplish color for any protracted periods.

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

#80

Post by glhaynes » Thu, Jul 09, 2015, 3:20 PM UTC

rprospero wrote: post #61

puranjay wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These folks are trying something like that: https://saybyebuy.com/ As an idea, I feel it's wonderful. It would massively reduce wastage.

What scares me about proposals like this is that it's further stratification of society into two separate classes: those who actually own everything and those who must appease the owners. For example, I can put £40 in my sock drawer every month and, in eight months, I could buy a PS4 and use it for the rest of my life. I could then start save that £40 toward a different purchase. Alternately, I could go with the site…

I could buy a PS4 and use it for the rest of my life

If you're amazingly lucky. In actuality, you've got to replace it (or have it repaired, which is usually almost as expensive) every few years because it wears out.

And you've got to continue paying for electricity to run it all that time. And the TV (and replacements/repairs for it) to play it on. And the electricity to run the TV. And a payment for the dwelling in which it's housed. (Which you can buy outright… but even if you do, the payments for upkeep and the taxes to keep roads/etc coming to it end up being of a similar order…) Etc, etc.

In practice, unless we lived under a radically different system (far more different than [state] capitalism with/without a guaranteed minimum income, or communism), we pretty much have to have a system in which everyone can afford to continue making regular payments on many if not most of the expensive things they use.