IBM has announced a technological breakthrough that will help facilitate the production of 5-nanometer chips, just two years after the company’s engineers confirmed the successful creation of a 7nm test chip. The project was made possible by IBM’s research alliance with semiconductor specialist GlobalFoundries and Samsung.
The new chip is around the size of a fingernail, but is able to house up to 30 billion switches. It’s hoped that the performance boost offered by the new design will be put to good use in data-intensive applications related to the Internet of Things and cognitive computing, among others.
IBM also claims that its capacity for reduced power consumption could mean that batteries in smartphones and other devices could last two to three times as long on a single charge.
The innovation at the core of the new chip is a brand-new architecture, eschewing the current FinFET design. Instead, stacks of silicon nanosheets are used to create the basic transistor structure.
IBM Research has apparently been looking into nanosheet semiconductor technology for over a decade. However, this project marks the first time that it’s been proven that the technology can offer practical benefits over FinFET architecture.
FinFET is limited by the height of its fins, which are used to carry an electrical current. However, nanosheet transistors can use extreme ultraviolet lithography for precise size adjustments, which allows their performance and power to be tailored for individual circuits. It’s already been demonstrated that FinFET chips can be scaled to 5nm, but reducing the space between fins doesn’t provide the same performance benefits that IBM is claiming with its nanosheet design.
IBM will share more details on this breakthrough at the 2017 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits, which is scheduled to take place in Kyoto, Japan this week. It may take years before this research is implemented in consumer products — but in order to push computers forward, it’s crucial that companies like IBM keep one eye on what’s coming next.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.