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IBM's 'breakthrough' computer chip

July 9, 2015

The chipmaker said it has managed to shrink the circuitry on its semiconductors by 50 percent, overcoming 'one of the grand challenges' of the industry. The discovery could take computing power to a new level.

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IBM on Thursday said its new chips could boost computing power of "everything from smartphones to spacecraft."

They are the first of their kind with transistors only 7 nanometers wide - roughly 1/10,000 the width of a human hair, the company said.

That's dramatically thinner than the 22 nanometer or 14 nanometer transistors used in the microprocessors that power today's servers.

The breakthrough was celebrated as a potential game-changer for the industry, which has consistently built smaller chips with more power in recent years but has seen progress slow as the physical limitations of existing technology appeared to be reached.

IBM said the new transistors could help power chips that would meet the ever-increasing demands of future cloud computing and Big Data systems, mobile products and other novel technologies.

The research was part of a $3 billion (2.7 billion euro) investment that saw the chipmaker partner with Samsung as well as the State University of New York's Polytechnic Institute to develop silicon-germanium transistors capable of boosting processing power.

cjc/pad (AP, AFP)