IBM, Synopsys Move Toward 1.4-nm Node with Heat-Modeling Tech

By Alan Patterson, EE Times | February 4, 2026

IBM is aiming for the 1.4-nm node thanks to new heat-modeling tech it developed with Synopsys and the support of U.S military research agency DARPA. The companies told EE Times they will share the technology with chipmaking partners as the 2-nm node ramps up. TSMC and other chipmakers like Samsung started 2-nm manufacturing last year.

IBM’s move comes after the company led the chipmaking industry with the announcement of the world’s first 2-nm chips in 2021. IBM dropped out of commercial chipmaking decades ago, yet it remains a major player with a tech stack that includes fabrication and advanced packaging.

As part of its latest effort, IBM Research developed a new machine learning (ML) tool with Ansys, now part of Synopsys, in a project supported by the U.S. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). IBM announced the results under DARPA’s Thermonat project, short for Thermal Design of Nanoscale Transistors. IBM modeled thermal behavior of chips down to the atomic level.

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