IBM Pushes Beyond 7 Nanometers, Uses Graphene To Place Nanomaterials on Wafers (ieee.org) 52
An anonymous reader shares a report: Four years ago, IBM announced that it was investing $3 billion over the next five years into the future of nanoelectronics with a broad project it dubbed "7nm and Beyond." With at least one major chipmaker, GlobalFoundries, hitting the wall at the 7-nm node, IBM is forging ahead, using graphene to deposit nanomaterials in predefined locations without chemical contamination. In research described in the journal Nature Communications, the IBM researchers for the first time electrified graphene so that it helps to deposit nanomaterials with 97% accuracy.
"As this method works for a wide variety of nanomaterials, we envision integrated devices with functionalities that represent the unique physical properties of the nanomaterial," said Mathias Steiner, manager at IBM Research-Brazil. "We also can envision on-chip light detectors and emitters operating within a distinct wavelength range determined by the optical properties of the nanomaterial." As an example, Steiner explained that if you wanted to modify the spectral performance of an optoelectronic device, you could simply replace the nanomaterial while keeping the manufacturing process flow the same. If you take the method one step further, you could assemble different nanomaterials in different places doing multiple passes of assembly to create on-chip light detectors operating in different detection windows at the same time.
"As this method works for a wide variety of nanomaterials, we envision integrated devices with functionalities that represent the unique physical properties of the nanomaterial," said Mathias Steiner, manager at IBM Research-Brazil. "We also can envision on-chip light detectors and emitters operating within a distinct wavelength range determined by the optical properties of the nanomaterial." As an example, Steiner explained that if you wanted to modify the spectral performance of an optoelectronic device, you could simply replace the nanomaterial while keeping the manufacturing process flow the same. If you take the method one step further, you could assemble different nanomaterials in different places doing multiple passes of assembly to create on-chip light detectors operating in different detection windows at the same time.
Mmmmm... (Score:1)
From TFA: (Score:2, Funny)
The wafers are unique in that they are "off-the-shelf" units manufactured by Nabisco and can be found in quantity on aisle 13.
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You can just say B. MM is used to designate million because backwards countries see an M and think thousand (mille) before they think million. When they see a B or "billion" they wonder what happened to "milliard", but they don't get confused further and start thinking of some other B number. They're just lost on the long scale from the first issue.
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The metric system: 3G$US fully specified, 3G$ short.
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Their mainframe division is alive and well. Lots of interesting technology, you should check it out.
So. (Score:2, Interesting)
GF reportedly hits a wall at 7nm, but not a word on Intel's Great Wall of 10nm..?
Re: So. (Score:1)
Especially when GF never made such a statement. They did however say that the cost to produce at 7nm wouldn't make them enough money, since they'd only have basically one customer (AMD). They instead chose to use their fab space producing more profitable chips.
Re:So. (Score:4, Funny)
Of all the unfortunate abbreviations to use when describing length and hitting 'a wall'.. She's clearly not wanting to hurt your feelings.
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I actually heard they are planning on just using ARM chips for everything... Not sure how much faith I put in that rumor but if true it would be really weird... It would have to be some extreme upgraded ARM to offer any reasonable performance in a desktop machine?
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It would have to be some extreme upgraded ARM to offer any reasonable performance in a desktop machine?
You mean like, with superscalar, shadow registers, multi-level cache, branch prediction, that kind of thing? Recent ARM has all of it, differences with X86 microarch have been steadily shrinking. SMT is one of the few x86 characteristic optimizations still missing from ARM. Not clear why ARM hasn't dropped the other shoe on that one, maybe transistor budget. But I would not be surprised at all to see an ARM SMT reveal by this time next year.
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GF reportedly hits a wall at 7nm, but not a word on Intel's Great Wall of 10nm..?
It's the same wall. Intel's 10nm has nearly the same feature dimensions as 7nm of the rest of the bunch. Intel aimed for about 10% finer metal pitch than TSMC and Samsung (36nm vs 40nm) apparently putting them just on the wrong side of the wall of what deep UV lithography can achieve reliably.
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Nobody is pointing a finger at Glofo for 7nm problems. Glofo decided just to stay out of that game entirely after having made almost zero investment in it. Glofo's only real problem was, AMD was taking its 7nm business elsewhere. Sensible decisions all round. AMD gets earlier, less risky production and Glofo continues to profit from its older but highly profitable 14nm and 28nm nodes. The latter may soon account for 30% of PC processor chips.
BTW, I wouldn't count Glofo out of the game at this point. They're
How many angels can dance on a nanowafer (Score:1)
Inquiring minds want to know "How many angels can dance on a nanomaterial wafer, and if they get hungry, can they eat the wafer, or will they get angel food poisoning?"
Also, it's less than 7 nanometers. Beyond, while it can be used for boundaries, implies further than, so it parses badly.
No contamination? (Score:1)
Interesting. I would have thought the graphene was a chemical contamination.
Summary is a bit misleading (Score:5, Interesting)
The summary is conflating two related, but distinct things here: 1. the ability to place features on a wafer at dimensions less than 7 nm, and 2. the ability to manufacture large quantities of highly reliable transistors with features less than 7 nm.
While 1. is a necessary condition for 2., it is far from sufficient.
The article itself doesn't discuss GF for good reason, since GF dropping out of the "end of Moore's law" race is irrelevant. However, the article wondering why IBM is investing here while it is de-vesting from semiconductor manufacturing misses the point. This is about development of new tools and technologies, not to squeeze one more node out of Moore's law.
These nanotechnologies can be highly useful in lots of areas distinct from chipmaking, for example, the article talks about light sense which could be very important in continuing advances in neuroscience and physical chemistry (to name too examples). There is REAL MONEY in healthcare and these type of new sensors could potentially revolutionize science and practice in many bio-facing areas.
IBM has gotten out of the chipmaking game and this announcement in no way implies it is getting back in.
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Slashdot - No News For Nerds (Score:3)
when not now (Score:2)
Graphene enabling THz clock-speeds (Score:5, Interesting)
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Miracle material with no products (Score:2)
Thus, instead of using graphene just as some structured base material, it may make a lot of sense to actually build the electronic circuit itself from graphene.
That's great. Wake me when we actually make something useful with graphene that I can actually buy or use instead of just talking about what a miracle material it is. We keep seeing all sorts of articles about how great it is and yet nobody seems to how to actually do anything useful with it outside of a laboratory.
Sounds pretty much like 7nm is it (Score:2)
This process by IBM sounds pretty expensive, hence it may be useful for special components (microwave transistors, e.g.), but that is it. I think we need to expect no real advancement beyond 7nm for the foreseeable future. Fine by me, maybe then software can start to catch up again instead of crappy coding just relying on more CPU speed.
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I think we need to expect no real advancement beyond 7nm for the foreseeable future.
Way wrong. EUV will take standard lithography down to 5nm and 3nm, these are already in the pipeline. Google GAAT.