1. IBM has made technology breakthroughs that could fundamentally change the way chips are made and dramatically improve their efficiency.
2. It has invented a polymer that assembles itself in sheets covered with precisely spaced slots—similar to the natural self-assembling process by which snowflakes form. That material is then used in the chipmaking process to create trillions of tiny air pockets, which replace less-effective silicon as the primary insulator.
3. These advances by way of nanotechnology will allow electrical signals on chips to flow 35% faster, or for the chips to consume 15% less energy. Chipmakers can also fine tune a chip to any combination of the two factors—say, a 17% speed boost and a 7% power savings.
4. IBM has already made chips using the new processes in its East Fishkill (N.Y.) fabrication plant, and it plans on starting up volume production in 2009 or sooner.
5. The advances will provide IBM with cost and performance advantages in the chips it makes for its own server computers and in chips it manufactures for others in the video-game, networking-equipment, and automotive markets.
6. It will share the technology with strategic partners AMD, Toshiba, Sony, and Freescale Semiconductor.
What Prof. Michael Porter of Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness called ‘product differentiation strategies’ are perhaps the greatest revenue strategies.
And, one day perhaps, nano-nano-technology will grant us nearly everything in nearly nothing.
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