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Friday, August 11, 2017

IBM + Partners breathe new life into Moore’s Law with 5NM chip technology

By Rich Ptak and Bill Moran


When IBM exited the chip foundry business several years ago most industry watchers were sad to see the company go. A key player for decades in semiconductor research, IBM would definitely be missed. We thought that the industry had suffered a real loss. We and others thought statements of IBM’s commitment to making further investments in semiconductor research were to be written off as an essentially meaningless face saving gestures.

As it turns out, we couldn’t have been more wrong. In fact, IBM research continued the work on semiconductor research that it had been doing for nearly 50[1] years.  The IBM-organized consortium of IBM, Global Foundries, and Samsung based at NY State’s SUNY campus in Albany, is delivering a significant breakthrough in semiconductor technology research.  Exiting the chip foundry business was not a sufficient reason for IBM Research to cease its efforts.

Here’s some background on what IBM and its partners have accomplished. Moore’s law[2] says that the number of transistors on a chip will double approximately every two years. The results of that law drove the semiconductor industry for decades.
A meter being roughly a yard.  It might have been more fun if the industry has used the term “nanoyard”. However, as the topic is worldwide technology, the metric system is used, as is the practice in global technical and scientific circles.
Recently, much published commentary (ours and others) discussed how the law was reaching the end of its useful life. A major reason being the physical limits of chip geometry. Incidentally, one of the effects of law is that today’s cellphones (which fit in a pocket) have more processing power than the 1960’s computers used for the Moon visit (which occupied an entire very large room).

To understand what is going on, we need a little computer industry technology background. The industry initially measured processing speeds in seconds. Things moved faster so the term “milliseconds” (one-thousandth of a second) became standard. As the speed-up continued, the “microsecond” (one-millionth of a second) became the standard. One might imagine that things could not get much faster, wrong. Today’s process speeds are measured in “nanoseconds”, i.e. billionths of a second.   

Moving to semiconductors, chip size is measured in terms of the distance between identical features in an array.  The current unit for this distance is “nanometer”, i.e.  a billionth of a meter. The leading edge for productions semiconductor chips today is 10 nanometers.

Moore’s law depends on shrinking the size of the chips while increasing the number of transistors on the chip which increases processing power. Conventional wisdom was that it wouldn’t be possible to push the FinFET technology (which underlies chip manufacturing today) to much smaller chips without losing efficiency. Thus, the comments about the end of Moore’s Law.

However, IBM along with its partners have now developed a process around the Stacked Nanosheet Gate-All-Around Transistor.  This allows eventually building 5 nm chips with improved efficiency, which could not be achieved with FinFETs. The details of the process exceed the scope of this paper. (Those interested can start here[3].) The chart below provides a simplified view of the new IBM process compared with the existing industry standard 10 nm process.


Chart 1 This chart is an adaption of a copyrighted IBM chart.
There are several items of note. IBM's  new chips orient transistors horizontally versus today’s vertical arrangement. This allows transistors to be stacked and have more on each chip. Also, IBM chips use a new way to form the sheet material that is much more efficient in power consumption. It delivers a 75% saving in power compared to existing 10 nm chip architectures.  Finally, the new sheet formation process allows continuous fine-tuning for power and performance of specific circuits during manufacturing. Something not possible with FinFET technology

In summary, it appears to us that the IBM consortium has breathed new life into Moore’s law. With this new architecture, it looks to be applicable for the next decade or so just when many were pronouncing the law dead. However, we expect the interest and investments in such new technologies as quantum, data-centric computing and other approaches to grow.

[1] Publication in 1974 of a paper by Robert Dennard et al on MOSFET scaling rules for improving transistor density. See http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.334.2417
[2] Not actually a law, it was a prediction about how the semiconductor industry would evolve in terms of density and cost per transistor.

Ptak Associates Tech Blog: Do two positive quarters signal a major turnaround...

Ptak Associates Tech Blog: Do two positive quarters signal a major turnaround...: By Bill Moran and Rich Ptak Although we don’t usually cover IBM storage, it’s worth calling attention to what appears to be a significa...

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Do two positive quarters signal a major turnaround for IBM Storage?

By Bill Moran and Rich Ptak


Although we don’t usually cover IBM storage, it’s worth calling attention to what appears to be a significant positive development.   Ed Walsh joined IBM as general manager of IBM Storage and Software Defined Infrastructure on July 11 of 2016.  He joined IBM from Catalogic Software, where he was CEO since 2014.  IBM Storage which had endured 21 consecutive quarters of declining revenue has turned a corner.  Revenue results since then appear below.

Storage Revenue by Quarter

1Q15 
2Q15 
3Q15
4Q15
1Q16
2Q16
3Q16
4Q16
1Q17
2Q17
-4%        
-14%
-7%
-7%
-6%
-13%
-9%
-10%
+7%
+8%
The change represents a dramatic 17-point swing from -10% in 4Q16 to a positive 7% growth in 1Q17. Growth that continued with another 2Q17 revenue increase of 8%.

With corporate IBM posting 20 or so quarters of declining revenues, IBM Storage reversing the trend by increasing revenue is great news. Storage requires proper investments to maintain such growth. Recent indicators, e.g. announcement of a successful collaboration with Sony using sputtered[1] magnetic tape to advance toward a dramatic increase in tape storage capacities (to 330 TB), suggests they will get what’s needed. And, IBM corporate will shift focus to other problem areas.

We expect IBM storage customers to feel reassured about existing IBM storage investments and benefits. They will view continued investment in and growth with IBM storage as good business sense. 

We fully understand that the storage marketplace remains intensely competitive. We recognize two-quarters of growth doesn’t guarantee success. Any benefits IBM enjoyed from the confusion resulting from the EMC/Dell merger, will disappear. The IBM Storage team will need to remain very motivated and highly competitive.

We are comfortable ending on a positive note. Clearly, IBM management were hoping for exactly what Ed Walsh and his team are delivering. In July alone, they made significant storage announcements, one was a new all flash solution for Exabyte Data analysis for Hortonworks[2]. The other was about a family of new flash arrays[3]. One model, when attached to the new z14 mainframe, delivers less than 20 microsecond response times. With more new offerings coming in 2H17, we look forward to 3Q17 revenue numbers to see if the trend continues. We’re inclined to think it will.




[1] The word “sputtered” is not a misprint. The new tape format is exactly that. It is a major breakthrough in tape technology. Google it for more information.