TSMC and MIT have made a major advancement in semiconductor design, with a 1nm breakthrough.
TSMC is a global leader in the semiconductor industry. The company makes chips for Apple, Qualcomm, AMD, NVIDIA, Alphabet, Huawei and Intel. Currently, TSMC uses 5nm chips. AMD is working to transition to 5nm and Intel is still struggling to move to 7nm. IBM made headlines when it announced it had made a breakthrough on 2nm chips, although they aren’t expected for another four years.
MIT and TSMC have now one-upped IBM, according to Taiwan News, making a major breakthrough with 1nm chips. The discovery was initially made by MIT, although MIT’s researchers were using TSMC components.
The announcement is further bad news for Intel. Once the leader in semiconductor design, Intel has increasingly faced supply and development issues, leading it to turn to TSMC to outsource some production. With TSMC now closing in on 1nm, the gap between the two companies will only continue to widen.