IBM unveils world’s first 7nm chip

An alliance led by IBM Research announced that it has produced the semiconductor industry’s first 7nm (nanometer) node test chips with functioning transistors. The breakthrough could result in the ability to place more than 20 billion transistors on the fingernail-sized chips that power everything from smartphones to spacecraft. To achieve the higher performance, lower power and scaling benefits promised by 7nm technology, researchers had to bypass conventional semiconductor manufacturing approaches. Ind