IBM's 5-nanometer chips show Moore's Law has plenty of life left

Have you ever wondered how gadgets keep getting thinner, but more powerful all the time??

The simple answer is processor shrinkage thanks to Moore's Law, which doubles the number of transistors on an integrated circuit roughly every two years.

Though Moore's Law has slowed down in recent years and some experts even think it's dead, chip designers continue to work their magic.

IBM, in collaboration with Samsung and GlobalFoundries, announced on Monday it's developed the world's first 5 nanometer (nm) silicon chip with 30 billion transistors.

IBM previously developed a 7nm "test node chip" that contained 20 billion transistors. Most computers and phones being made today use chips based on a 14nm process. Newer devices including Samsung's own Galaxy S8 employ Qualcomm's 10nm Snapdragon 835 chips which are more powerful and energy efficient.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

While still years away from mass production and availability in consumer devices (we're only just getting around to commercializing 7nm chips, which is expected in 2018), IBM says 5nm chips will see a 40 percent performance boost while using the same energy as existing 10nm chips, or see a 75 percent reduction in energy using the same performance as today.

IBM says the smaller chips will mean "a significant boost to meeting the future demands of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, virtual reality and mobile devices."

The benefits of 5nm chips are obvious no matter how you look at it. Now, all we need is a serious battery breakthrough to get us closer towards the perfect phone that has all the power and lasts for days instead of hours.