IBM 2nm Chip Breakthrough

IBM as a company is probably just as old as the computer itself, so when they say that they have made a breakthrough, people need to listen. Recently, the company has come into the limelight once more as it made bold claims to have made the fastest and most efficient computer chip in the world. 

Computer chip manufacturers use the term nanometers (one billionth of a meter) to measure the size of the transistors. As a general rule, the lower the number of nanometers is the better. Such companies like IBM are trying to reduce that number significantly.

• According to IBM, its new test chip will improve performance by over 45% at 2nm compared to its current 7nm counterparts.
• The new 2nm chip is also much more energy-efficient and can match current processing speeds while using 75% less energy.
• If all of this is true, which seems to be the case, this can change how we use our phones and laptops. IBM claims that once these 2nm chips are made commercial, they can quadruple battery life, and you will only need to charge your phones once every four days.
• This new 2nm processor can consist of 50 billion transistors while being the size of a fingernail.
• One thing to focus on amid all of this is that the current 7nm chips used today did not become commercially available until four years after IBM had cracked the code. However, many chip-makers like AMD and Intel have already unveiled their plans to build low nm chips in the next few years.
• According to Peter Rudden, a research director at IDC, the IBM processor could be used for Artificial Intelligence (AI) when you usually would use a second piece of hardware like a graphic card to handle some tasks. With the increase in power efficiency and performance, this new chip can do a lot more on its own than any other chip before it.
• This latest IBM test chip was built at the company’s Albany research lab, and it could not have come at a better time when there is an international shortage of computer chips.
• Many companies, including car manufacturers, have been forced to halt their products as there is a shortage of computer parts. The same is the case with Nintendo, and according to them, this shortage is affecting the production of their popular Nintendo Switch console.
• The United States is trying to tackle this shortage and has even called a special industry summit to discuss this shortage. Other governments like the UK have stopped chip designer Arm by Nvidia as it could hurt chip production even more.
• On the other hand, Intel has announced that it would be investing USD 20 billion to build two new plants in the United States. This is being done to reduce the world’s reliance on Chinese chip manufacturers that currently supply around 80% of the world’s chips.