IBM Just Packed 100B Transistors Into A Fingernail-Sized Sub-1nm Chip — Is It Rewriting Moore's Law?

• IBM said the new sub-1nm chip addresses a challenge facing the semiconductor industry as conventional chip scaling becomes increasingly difficult at smaller process nodes.
• The company projects the chip could deliver up to 50% more performance or 70% greater energy efficiency than its 2nm technology.
• IBM said it sees a path to bringing its nanostack technology into production at the sub-1 nm node within the next five years.

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) on Thursday unveiled the world’s first sub-1 nanometer chip technology, packing nearly 100 billion transistors onto a chip that is the size of a fingernail.

IBM’s new sub-1nm chip comes with nearly twice the density of the company’s 2nm chip unveiled in 2021.

IBM shares were up more than 6% in Thursday’s pre-market trade. IBM was among the top trending tickers on Stocktwits at the time of writing.

Why IBM’s New Chip Is A Big Deal

IBM said the new sub-1nm chip addresses a challenge facing the semiconductor industry as conventional chip scaling becomes increasingly difficult at smaller process nodes.

The company said its 0.7nm, or 7-angstrom, technology demonstrates that continued gains in chip performance and efficiency remain possible even as transistor features approach atomic dimensions. “IBM’s latest chip breakthrough marks a landmark moment in computing, pushing technology beyond the nanometer era to the scale of atoms,” said Jay Gambetta, Director of IBM Research.

IBM said it sees a path to bringing its nanostack technology into production at the sub-1 nm node within the next five years.

How IBM Built The World’s First Sub-1nm Chip

At the heart of the breakthrough is IBM's new "nanostack" architecture, which the company described as the industry's first known three-dimensional, nanosheet-based transistor design.

Instead of relying solely on smaller transistors, the architecture vertically stacks and staggers them, allowing more transistors to be packed onto a chip while enabling different material combinations in each layer to optimize performance and power efficiency.

Based on published technical results, the company projects the chip could deliver up to 50% more performance or 70% greater energy efficiency than its 2nm technology, with applications ranging from generative AI and cloud infrastructure to next-generation electronic devices.

What Retail Traders Think Of IBM Stock

Retail sentiment on Stocktwits around IBM trended in the ‘neutral’ territory, with message volumes at ‘high’ levels at the time of writing.

IBM stock is down 11% year-to-date and 10% over the past 12 months. The S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) and the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF (VTI) are up 21% over the past 12 months.

The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) is up 156% during this period, while the State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) is up 48%.

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