The International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) will allot $3 billion in the next five years for two extensive research and development programs of its future generations of chips that will fulfill the evolving demands of Big Data and cloud computing systems.
IBM will invest considerably in developing research areas, which are already ongoing at the company, such as new memory technologies, silicon photonics, carbon nanoelectronics and architectures supporting cognitive and quantum computing.
Its first research program is focused on silicon technology dubbed as "7 nanometer and beyond" that will resolve "serious physical challenges that are threatening current semiconductor scaling techniques and will impede the ability to manufacture such chips."
"The question is not if we will introduce 7 nanometer technology into manufacturing, but rather how, when, and at what cost?" John Kelly, SVP of IBM Research, says in a statement. "IBM engineers and scientists, along with our partners, are well suited for this challenge and are already working on the materials science and device engineering required to meet the demands of the emerging system requirements for cloud, big data, and cognitive systems. This new investment will ensure that we produce the necessary innovations to meet these challenges."
IBM’s second research is centered on creating alternative technologies for its post-silicon era chips with the use of varied approaches, which are required because silicon-based semiconductors have physical limitations.
Meanwhile, quantum computing and nanosciences are two basic science areas where IBM is continued to be recognized as a pioneer for more than three decades now.
"In the next ten years computing hardware systems will be fundamentally different as our scientists and engineers push the limits of semiconductor innovations to explore the post-silicon future," says Tom Rosamilia, SVP of IBM Systems and Technology Group. "IBM Research and Development teams are creating breakthrough innovations that will fuel the next era of computing systems."
The IBM research teams will be composed of engineers and scientists from Europe, Yorktown and Albany in New York, and Almaden in California. The company will also continue to collaborate with and fund university researchers in exploring and developing advanced technologies and through private-public partnerships for the semiconductor business.
Richard Doherty, technology research director at The Envisioneering Group, says IBM is among the few companies that repeatedly showed expertise on such level of science and engineering. There were talks that IBM will leave the silicon business, but Doherty believes otherwise.
"IBM is not giving up on silicon, but it is saying it’s time to place an array of bets, and to move beyond silicon," Doherty said.
Based on research, IBM is the first company to make an announcement of its plans to develop 7 nanometer chips, unlike Intel that previously discussed it quite vaguely and Samsung or TSMC that made no mention at all.
