Re: IBM - New SUB-Nanometer STACKED Chip

On Tue, 6/30/2026 2:51 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2026-06-30, c186282 <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> On 6/30/26 09:51, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
>>
>>> On 6/30/2026 5:14 PM, c186282 wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Can you fabricate 0.000000...0000000001 nm chips?
>>>>>
>>>>> Is zero the seal or wall? :)
>>>>
>>>>     Um, pretty quick you get to ATOMS ... and, for any
>>>>     normal electronics, that's IT.
>>>
>>> You cannot have 0.000000....00 nm chip.
>>>
>>> That's a void, empty, nothing. :)
> 
> I tried to think through the implications of this
> but I got a divide error.
> 
>>    "Electronics" are now about literal atom-thick structures.
>>    Can't go any smaller.
>>
>>    Any better future stuff will have to exploit quantum
>>    effects - get more bang for yer nanometer. Alas quantum
>>    stuff isn't as deterministic as bulk matter devices
>>    and suffer from the uncertainty principle.
> 
> Omigod, we might have to revive the KISS principle
> in order to get anything more done.  The proponents
> of complexity as a weapon will be so disappointed...
> 

This article is from the year 2001.

   https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2001/04/new-process-makes-near-atomic-scale-nanobumps

      "A nanometer is equal to the width of 3 silicon atoms."

      "But the technique is limited by the wavelength of light, and to date,
       commercial optical lithography has not been able to produce features
       smaller than 150 nanometers in width."

OMG, we'd doomed, he said. Progress, stopped in its very tracks.
The AM table radio can never exist now. We will be loading our
muskets with ball and powder, like always. I will have to fold
my own towels now, as a $20,000 robot to do the job can never exist.

Articles like that put the pace of progress in perspective.

Whether we do a thing, depends on what it costs. So while IBM
can publish an article, it's not a given that this scheme will
work out. If it adds even a few more process steps, it will be
rejected as impractical. It currently takes 12 weeks to make
a chip. If there is an earthquake, a single quarter of yearly output
is thrown away (any wafers inside process machines, being etched,
doped, or sputtered, thrown away). If the manufacturing time of chips
were to double, to 24 weeks (about half a year), then the exposure
to earthquake losses, increases.

   Paul