by CIO Staff

IBM to Produce Smaller, More Powerful Chips

News
Feb 21, 20061 min
Data Center

On Monday, IBM announced that it can now produce microchips that are smaller and more powerful than previously thought possible, ElectricNews.net reports via The Register.

The development could save IT manufacturing firms billions of dollars in production costs.

The size and speed of a chip depends on the distance between circuit-lines that chip-producers “draw” onto a computer processor, ElectricNews.net reports.  IBM claims it can now draw these lines closer together than in the past, according to ElectricNews.net.

The current methods for drawing circuit-lines are not expected to work on chips with a size of less than 32 nanometers, ElectricNews.net reports; however, using the new technique, IBM Research staffers have been able to draw on a processor that is only 29.9 nanometers.

The new technology draws circuit-lines onto processors in a fashion that’s not unlike the way t-shirt designs are screen-printed, according to ElectricNews.net.

For related past CIO coverage, read IBM Introduces Gaming Chip-based Corp. Computers and Faster Wireless Data Chips from IBM.

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