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Numerous sources are reporting that IBM's recent $3 billion investment in new chipmaking technologies and collaboration with the State University of New York in Albany, GlobalFoundries, and Samsung Electronics Co. is beginning to bear fruit. IBM has developed chips with functional transistors using a 7 nanometer process technology.
In particular, silicon-germanium (SiGe) has been incorporated into FinFET transistors, the fins of which are stacked at a pitch of less than 30nm, compared to a 42nm pitch for Intel's 14nm Broadwell chips. Long delayed extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography from ASML was used to etch the features. Although ASML's EUV tools are still slower and more expensive than conventional lithography, Michael Liehr, the executive vice president for innovation and technology at the SUNY Poly research center, predicted that ASML would improve EUV over the next four to six years, before 7nm chips are set to reach the market. More aggressive estimates put the introduction of 7nm chips around 2017-2018.
Ars Technica has a story on this topic with more technical background.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday July 10 2015, @05:33PM
> I wonder what voltage they run on?
16nm can run at 0.73V
I'm not sure how you can safety run below a diode drop in a real system.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday July 11 2015, @12:05AM
Interesting... I knew at those geometries, the current flow in the gate structures had to be in the picoampere range or you would flat vaporize the interconnects. Of course the capacitance would be in the femtofarad range as well. 730 millivolts. Kinda expected something in that range.
Its amazing what those guys are doing these days...
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]