IBM Publicizes World’s First 7nm Working Chip

choi

(1) News release: IBM Research Alliance Produces Industry’s First 7nm Node Test Chips; Partners with GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Samsung and SUNY Polytech to clear path for next generation semiconductors. IBM, July 9, 2015 (1 hour ago)
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/47301.wss
("The breakthrough, accomplished in partnership with GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Samsung at SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (SUNY Poly CNSE) * * * Among the novel processes and techniques pioneered by the IBM Research alliance were a number of industry-first innovations, most notably Silicon Germanium (SiGe) channel transistors and Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography integration at multiple levels")

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest.
(b) It is 11:15 am, July 9.
(c)
(i) Germanium
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanium
(Ge; atomic number 32; Purified germanium is a semiconductor [just like silicon]; in 1886, Clemens Winkler found the new element [and] named the element after his country, Germany)
(ii) etymology:
(A) In Latin, Germania (n; Germānī + -ia) was the nation (now Germany).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Germania
(B) Also in Latin, Germānus (n & adj; plural Germānī): "a person from a Germanic people"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Germanus
(C) germanium (n): “chemical element, coined 1885 in Modern Latin by its discoverer (German chemist Clemens Alexander Winkler (1838-1904)) from Latin Germania ‘Germany’ (see Germany). With metallic element ending -ium.”
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=Germanium

choi

(2) John Markoff, IBM Discloses Working Version of a Much Higher-Capacity Chip. New York Times, July 9, 2015.
www.nytimes.com/2015/07/09/techn ... y-in-existence.html

Quote:

"Intel, which for decades has been the industry leader, has faced technical challenges in recent years [presumably this sentence means Intel's 10nm node].

"As points of comparison to the size of the seven-nanometer transistors, a strand of DNA is about 2.5 nanometers in diameter

"The semiconductor industry must now decide if IBM’s bet on silicon-germanium is the best way forward.

"In the past, Intel said it could see its way toward seven-nanometer manufacturing. But it has not said when that generation of chip making might arrive.  IBM also declined to speculate on when it might begin commercial manufacturing of this technology generation [what IBM has today is produced in a lab]. This year, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company said [in a road map] that it planned to begin pilot product of seven-nanometer chips in 2017. Unlike IBM, however, it has not demonstrated working chips to meet that goal.  It is uncertain whether the longer exposure times required by the new generation of EUV photolithographic stepper machines [is practical commercially due to concern about 'longer exposure times' and vibration's effect on it (time)]

"To date, he [Mukesh Khare, vice president for semiconductor research at IBM] noted, the [IBM] demonstration has taken place in a research lab, not in a manufacturing plant.

Note: nucleic acid double helix
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleic_acid_double_helix
(B-DNA, the most common double helical structure; section 4 Helix geometries: Table: B-DNA diameter "2.0 nm")