IBM on Thursday unveiled what it described as the first technology able to produce semiconductor chips smaller than one nanometer, positioning the company to pursue denser, more energy-efficient processors tailored to demanding AI workloads.
The Armonk, New York-based firm described a transistor architecture of 0.7 nanometers, or 7 angstroms, built around a new approach to device geometry it calls "nanostack." Instead of placing transistors side-by-side on a single plane, the nanostack concept stacks transistor elements in three dimensions. IBM said this vertical stacking lets designers fit substantially more switching elements into the same physical volume.
According to IBM, the 0.7-nanometer chip integrates nearly 100 billion transistors on a surface no larger than a fingernail. The company said this represents roughly twice the transistor density of the 2-nanometer chip it introduced in 2021 and yields either up to 50% higher performance or up to 70% greater energy efficiency, depending on design trade-offs.
"With our new nanostack architecture, we’re not just making smaller transistors, we’re reinventing how chips are built to deliver dramatically more power and energy efficiency," Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research, said in the company announcement.
The disclosure arrives as chipmakers aim to continue the long-standing industry trend of increasing transistor counts in smaller areas - Moore’s Law - to meet expanding compute demands driven in part by AI. IBM framed the nanostack advance as strengthening its competitive stance against major contract manufacturers, naming TSMC and Intel as industry rivals.
Intel last week said its next-generation 18A process, which it described as making 1.8-nanometer-class chips, had moved into risk production, the testing phase before commercial manufacturing. IBM did not announce a foundry partnership for the 0.7-nanometer technology; the company has previously licensed other chip technologies to Samsung and Japan’s Rapidus.
On the market, IBM shares rose more than 6% in premarket trading following the announcement. The stock, IBM said, has declined about 11% so far this year. IBM also stated that production of the 0.7-nanometer technology could begin within five years.
The information provided reflects IBM’s statements about the new transistor architecture, performance and timeline. No manufacturing partner for this specific technology has been named.