The world's first 2 nanometre Chip. Is it the future?

IBM declared a milestone in integrated circuit design on May 6:  the world's first 2-nanometer process. IBM claims that the latest method will create CPUs that are 45% faster or use 75 considerably less energy than the present 7 nm designs.

If you're following recent processor headlines, you're probably aware that Intel's newest desktop processors are already stalled at 14 nanometres, while the corporation tries to complete a conversion to 10 nanometres. Its competitors are using far shorter processes, with Apple's latest M1 processors being the smallest output chips at 5 nanometres. What isn't obvious is what it entails in the first place.

"The IBM innovation reflected in this new 2 nm chip is essential to the entire semiconductor and IT industry," said Darío Gil who is the SVP and Director of IBM Research.

Smaller, quicker, more durable, and powerful chips can be made by increasing the number of transistors per chip.

The 2 nm architecture showcases IBM's nanosheet technology's innovative semiconductor scaling capabilities. Its design is a first in the industry. This new construction, produced less than four years after IBM unveiled its landmark 5 nm design, would enable the 2 nm chip to fit up to 50 billion transistors on a chip the size of a fingernail. 

With far more transistors, more advances in artificial intelligence and cryptography, among other aspects, will be able to be applied directly to the processors. Mobile phone batteries could last 4 times higher with 2-nanometer chips, tablets could be significantly faster, and data centres' carbon footprints could be reduced as they use more energy sustainable chips.

After years of turmoil in the United States' position in the global semiconductor industry, the Biden administration is considering spending $50 billion to grow domestic chip production, production, and manufacturing.

IBM is using the same simple technique that chipmakers have been using for decades: a precisely structured pattern of light is beamed onto silicon wafers to etch templates that become the data-processing circuitry components known as integrated circuits. Two constructs are used in the new system. The short, flat fibres that bring electrical charges through the transistor are called nanosheets. The second is a modern gate layout, which is a component that turns the current on and off. To prevent electrical current leakage, IBM uses gate-all-around technology, which fully circles each nanosheet with gate material.

The 5nm manufacturing node process is used in Apple's newly launched M1 chip computers, for example. Tesla's agreement with Samsung to produce 5nm chips for its FSD technology was just recently expanded.

Intel still uses 10nm and 14nm processors, but it's transistor density is usually higher than its rivals, so it's not a true like-for-like comparison. Intel commonly seems to use density to characterize its processors, claiming that they have higher density than rivals both at 7 nm and 10 nm nodes, partially to refute claims that it has lagged in launching new nodes. Intel's 7 nm has a far higher density than either TSMC's or Samsung's, according to Cutress' numbers. As per Anandtech, the Intel 7 nm has an approximate 237 million transistors per square millimetre, while TSMC and Samsung have 91 and 95 respectively.

The new M1 chip by Apple is already very efficient and powerful considering its rivals. This new IBM chip will open a new era of computation and processing if it can deliver what the company has claimed.