IBM’s new processors are insanely small

IBM’s new prototype chips have circuits 10,000 times thinner than a human hair, reports The Guardian. At 7 nanometers, the circuits are the smallest yet, and that reduced size means the processors will be four times more powerful than most chips now, with up to 20 billion transistors on a single chip, according to IBM. Doubts had swirled as to whether such a tiny chip could be made because of the difficulty in controlling the electrons flowing through transistors of that size. But switching to a silicon-germanium material — rather than pure silicon — for portions of the chip was a crucial development. The company is the first to announce a working prototype of the tiny chips, but they won’t be available for purchase for several years.  
    
— Source: www.news.sciencemag.org