IBM’s Meyerson: 7 to 9 nm Chips is Low as You can Go

Over at The Register, Dan Olds writes that integrated circuits can’t continue to shrink forever.

So where’s the end of the line? According to Bernie: 7 to 9 nanometers. When the features on a chip get to this minute size, you start to see quantum mechanics effects that are “very nasty” that impairs the performance of the processor’s decision-making gates. The problems at 7nm are profound to the point where there isn’t really any way around them – it’s just too damned small – and there isn’t a way to scale down an atom. It’s a fundamental limit, and it’s finally in sight. Chips in mass production these days have a 32nm or 22nm feature size, and 14nm is not far down the line.

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