Musk Calls IBM's '0.7nm Chip' Label Misleading, Proposes Naming by Atom Count

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0800

Semiconductor process node names stopped being literal a long time ago. The number that used to refer to the gate length of a transistor — 7nm, 5nm, 3nm — now functions more as a generational marketing label than a measurement. But Elon Musk thinks the industry has taken that abstraction a step too far.

The billionaire weighed in after a post on X pointed out that IBM’s newly announced “0.7nm” chip — which the company also calls 7Å (angstrom) — contains zero printed features smaller than 1 nanometer. The post called the naming “completely nonsensical and extremely misleading.” Musk agreed, and went further.

“We should name process nodes by the number of atoms corresponding to the minimum feature width,” Musk wrote on X. “In my opinion, that would be the most accurate way to name them.”

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Musk Calls IBM's '0.7nm Chip' Label Misleading, Proposes Naming by Atom Count