Right now DDR3 is made on a ~30nm process. We can't really shrink that too much more without the various pathways bleeding into each other. We're just running

Right now DDR3 is made on a ~30nm process. We can't really shrink that too much more without the various pathways bleeding into each other. We're just running into insulation limits. They'll still be able to shrink it a bit, but this holds true for CPUs as well, and is one of many reasons why we're increasing cores in pursuit of higher performance. We're scheduled to hit 11nm; after that I'm not sure. See the Wikipedia article on quantum tunnelling for an explanation that's mostly above my comprehension. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling edit: To get an idea of the scales we're talking about, 11nm is only about 50 silicon atoms wide. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=11nm+/+width+of+silicon+atom http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=11nm+/+width+of+silicon...