IBM Unveils World's First Sub‑1 Nanometer Chip

IBM announced a breakthrough in semiconductor technology with the introduction of a sub‑1 nanometer chip built on a new "nanostack" architecture. The 0.7 nm (7 angstrom) node chip packs roughly 100 billion transistors onto a fingernail‑sized die, delivering up to 50 % higher performance and around 70 % greater energy efficiency compared with IBM’s earlier 2 nm chips.

The nanostack design vertically stacks and staggers transistor layers, allowing higher density without further shrinking horizontal dimensions. IBM, no longer a chip fabricator, plans to license the technology to manufacturers such as Japan’s Rapidus and South Korea’s Samsung, projecting commercial use in about five years. The advance is positioned to boost compute capabilities for generative AI, cloud infrastructure and future electronic devices, extending Moore‑law‑style scaling into the atomic‑scale era.