Overview
Our history is multi-faceted: the institutional growth of a small lab started on the campus of a major university to the largest industrial research organization in the world. The progressive opening of labs around the world to form a truly global body of researchers. The design and construction of the landmark buildings that house them. The people that have led the labs and those that made outstanding contributions to the field of information technology. Most importantly, the major inventions and discoveries along the way.
On this page, you can read the innovative highlights from this year. To learn more about IBM's history of breakthroughs and industry leadership, check out the links on the right.
2007 (first half)
Computer chip manufacturing
IBM researchers introduce self-assembling nanotechnology to conventional chip manufacturing, to build the next generation of computer chips. In chips using the technique, researchers have proven that electrical signals can flow 35 percent faster, or the chips can consume 15 percent less energy, compared to the most advanced chips using conventional techniques.
10 chip breakthroughs in 10 years
IBM researchers made their tenth breakthrough in chip design in ten years. These breakthroughs represent how innovation at IBM has transformed the IT industry with new materials and design architectures to build smaller, more powerful and energy efficient chips.
MRI technology to the nanoscale
Researchers at IBMs Almaden Research Center demonstrated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to visualize nanoscale objects. This technique brings MRI capability to the nanoscale level for the first time and represents a major milestone in the quest to build a microscope that could "see" individual atoms in three dimensions.
Chip-stacking technology: extending Moores Law
IBM researchers discovered a breakthrough chip-stacking technology in a manufacturing environment that paves the way for three-dimensional chips that will extend Moores Law beyond its expected limits. The technology called through-silicon vias -- allows different chip components to be packaged much closer together for faster, smaller, and lower-power systems.
World's fastest optical chipset
IBM scientists revealed a prototype optical transceiver chipset capable of reaching speeds at least eight times faster than optical components today. The transceiver is fast enough to reduce the download time for a typical high definition feature-length film to a single second compared to 30 minutes or more.
Helping the blind "see" Internet multimedia
IBM researchers in Tokyo designed a new multimedia browsing accessibility tool to help blind and visually impaired people experience streaming video and animation on the Internet. This tool offers people with visual impairment the same multimedia control features sighted people see and operate with a mouse. It provides a shortcut key in place of a play button, and additional controls that cater to the visually impaired.
Supercomputing simulations support chip breakthrough
A team of scientists at IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory used advanced supercomputer-based models for the first time to more deeply understand the complex behavior of a new material -- hafnium dioxide -- in silicon transistors.
Building the new supercomputer of the Max Planck Society
The Max Planck Society selected IBM to build a powerful supercomputer devoted to solving grand challenges of science, ranging from investigations into the formation of the universe to the exploration of incredibly small nano worlds. The Max Planck Societys new System p supercomputer will be designed to achieve a peak performance of over 100 TeraFlop/s (100 trillion calculations per second), offering up to 20 times the application performance of the Society's current supercomputer.
New service helps put more 'eyes' on data
IBM launched "Many Eyes," an innovative new service that allows people to explore different visual representations of large amounts of data and share it with others to collectively make better sense of the information. By drawing on the insight and expertise of users all across the Internet, Many Eyes can provide broader and deeper analyses of data.
New generation of chips
Working with AMD, Sony and Toshiba, IBM found a way to construct a critical part of transistors with a new material, which has superior electrical properties compared to its predecessor. This will clear a path toward chip circuitry that is smaller, faster and more power-efficient than previously thought possible, and was the first fundamental change to basic transistors in forty years.
