IBM's crazy-thin 7nm chip will hold 20 billion transistors

Looks like Moore's Law has some life in it yet, though creating a 7nm chip required exotic techniques and materials.

How far can we push Moore’s Law? It’s starting to become a concerning question as processors push into almost infinitesimally small process nodes.

Intel’s 14-nanometer Broadwell chips suffered from lengthy delays, stuttering Intel’s vaunted tick-tock manufacturing schedule. TSMC, the company that manufactures graphics processors for AMD and Nvidia, has been stuck at the 28nm node for yearsnow. Intel plans to push into 10nm in 2017, but IBM’s looking beyond that, and just revealed the world’s first working 7nm processor—but it took some pretty exotic manufacturing to get there.

Creating a working 7nm chip required moving past pure silicon, IBM revealed. IBM—working with GlobalFoundries, Samsung, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, and others—carved the transistor channels out of silicon-germanium (SiGe) alloy in order to improve electron mobility at such a small scale. Intel has also said 10nm will be the last gasp for pure silicon chips.

IBM and co. had to turn to cutting-edge lithography techniques to etch features onto the chip. The companies utilized extreme ultraviolet lithography, which Intel has also been investing heavily in for years now. The details behind EUV get complicated, but essentially, it’s a beam of light with a far narrower wavelength (read: width) than current lithography tools. The benefits of moving to a smaller feature-etching tool when working on a chip with 7nm components is obvious.

DARRYL BAUTISTA/IBM

The consortium also managed to stack the chip incredibly tightly, with a 30nm transistor pitch, which helped it achieve a nearly 50-percent surface area reduction over today’s top-end chips.

The 7nm SiGe chips are nowhere near production-ready, but when they’re cleared for commercial use around 2017, IBM says they’ll result in “at least a 50 percent power/performance improvement for next generation… systems” on account of all those process improvements. Ars Technica has a wonderfully detailed write-up on the manufacturing process for IBM’s 7nm chips.

But that’s not even the most impressive number. IBM says that when the industry embraces 7nm manufacturing techniques, processors will be able to be stuffed with an incredible 20 billion transistors. By comparison, Intel’s new Broadwell-U processors pack “only” 1.9 billion transistors.

Original Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2946124/ibm-reveals-worlds-first-working-7nm-processor.html

Selfie with grandfather's dead body draws social media outrage

Saudi authorities have launched an investigation into the young man's actions following a torrent of angry complaints. It has been branded deeply inappropriate and 'immoral'.

A bizarre selfie by a teenager in Saudi Arabia with the body of his dead grandfather has caused outrage on the social media.

The photo taken on the boy's phone shows him pulling a cheeky face, with his tongue stuck out in a childish manner. Positioned next to him, the teenager's grandfather's body can be seen lying still in his bed, Daily Mail reported.

Captioned 'Goodbye, Grandfather', the teenager uploaded the picture on to his social media, leaving people shocked by the insensitive behavior. Saudi authorities have launched an investigation into the young man's actions following a torrent of angry complaints. It has been branded deeply inappropriate and 'immoral'. Calls have also been made on social media for an investigation into how hospital staff allowed the incident to happen.

Abdul Razak Hafedh, the head of public relations and media in the Madinah area, confirmed that an internal investigation was underway.

"The health authorities in Madinah are looking into the case and assessing whether the selfie was taken at a hospital in the area. Should that be the case, action will certainly be taken against all culprits for allowing or failing to prevent such an immoral act," Hafedh said. He described the teenager's action as 'irresponsible behavior' and 'violation of public morals'.

Saud al-Harbi, a lawyer, said the teenager's behavior was an offence which would be punished. "It is a terrible provocation of common feelings and a flagrant violation of public morals.

Original Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/selfie-teenager-dead-grandfather-saudi-arabia-facebook-social/1/449008.html

Why Did Apple Make The Apple Watch? — ‘The Why’

For those of you who are not hardcore tech geeks, Apple held an event in San Francisco, California on March 9 to introduce their newest product the Apple Watch. Key details were provided about the Apple Watch.

According to Kyle VanHemert, a contributor to Wired, Apple announced “how much it will cost, and when we’ll be able to buy it. Tim Cook and associates showed off a grab bag of features.” He agrees, however, that no one from Apple provided “any overarching sense of why this thing exists” other than to make money of course.

Other than the obvious “making money” angle, VanHemert confirms our suspicions that Apple does not have to tell us why y made the Apple Watch. Of course, if the folks at Apple don’t themselves know why they made the Apple Watch he says “that’s troubling.”

VanHemert recalls Steve Jobs unveiling the iPad at the start of 2010. Jobs spoke on the specific position of the iPad “in relation to the devices we already owned.”

Jobs stated: “All of us use laptops and smart phones now. Is there room for a third category of device in the middle? In order to really create a new category of devices, those devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks. If there’s gonna be a third category of device, it’s gonna have to be better at these kinds of tasks than a laptop or a smartphone. Otherwise it has no reason for being.”

Why is there an Apple Watch?/Image: STEM

Hence today’s question. “That’s the missing piece,” VanHemert agrees. He adds: “What is the Apple Watch’s reason for being? What are the things it’s better at than a smartphone? “

In simpler terms, why did Apple make the Apple Watch? Apple originally focused on three things: Timekeeping, fitness and communication.   When VanHemert studied these three angles he was not convinced the final version of the Apple Watch was not all that great for any of those things.

Apple is attempting to put a second device on the customer’s body but without telling us why they made it and what it does that the smart phone cannot do.  It often would make sense to be able to quickly check your watch and read a message as opposed to digging out your smart phone.

This could help folks get away from their screens for a little bit. Still, Apple hasn’t said anything about that. VanHemert agrees that Apple could have said: (The Apple Watch is) a device that will let you spend less time looking blearily at a screen and more time looking at trees or books or the people sitting across the dinner table from you.”

So why did Apple make the Apple Watch? Wired states that “all we know now is that the Apple Watch will bring a bunch of new experiences.”

Why did Apple make the Apple Watch? Now you know.

Source: http://americanlivewire.com/2015-03-12-why-did-apple-make-the-apple-watch-the-why/