IBM Will Use Samsung’s 7nm Tech for Data Center and Cloud Servers

IBM tapped Samsung to manufacture its 7-nanometer (nm) microprocessors for its high-end data center and cloud servers. The announcement comes as other manufactures including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) race to bring their next-gen silicon to market — and challenge Intel’s long-standing chip dominance in the data center. It also follows earlier rumors that IBM would use TSMC’s technology. “After discussions with many of the vendors in our ecosystem, we decided to partner with Samsung who we’ve been working with for the past 15 years on R&D,” said John Acocella, VP of enterprise systems and technology development for IBM Systems, in an email. “As part of IBM’s Research Alliance, IBM and Samsung helped to develop the first 7nm test chip,” he added. This was back in 2015. At the time, the partners said technology breakthroughs could result in the ability to place more than 20 billion tiny switches on the fingernail-sized chips that power everything from smartphones to spacecraft. These 7nm chips (and Intel’s equivalent 10nm technology) promise higher performance, lower power, and scaling benefits compared to earlier microprocessors.