6 ms·
Serious question, what is the hypothetical limit of this? 1nm? Can you go lower than that?
by dbbk 6y ago
Serious question, what is the hypothetical limit of this? 1nm? Can you go lower than that?
- mic_ozar 6y agoThe spacing between silicon atoms is 0.235nm.
- szatkus 6y agoFor quite some time these nanometers is only a name. The only limitation right now is imagination of people working in TSMC and other (also money, I guess). Here's a video of Jim Keller presenting Intel's share of tricks for a few future generations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIG9ztQw2Gc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIG9ztQw2Gc
- tambourine_man 6y agoWhat a great talk, thank you for sharing.
- lldbg 6y agoWe still have ways to go. The node name (3nm) in this example is pure marketing, there is no feature that is 3nm small on the die(s). Smallest feature size is rather 10-30 nm, and you can (again, side of napkin calculation) squeeze in 100 atoms in that space.
- civilized 6y agoIs there any rationale at all for the name? Maybe it's about how precisely things like corners can be etched, even if the smallest features are much larger than that?
- ebruchez 6y agoDon't look for a rationale. See this recent article "The Node Is Nonsense: https://read.nxtbook.com/ieee/spectrum/spectrum_na_august_2020/the_node_is_nonsense.html https://read.nxtbook.com/ieee/spectrum/spectrum_na_august_20... It goes in depth into this topic.
- squeals_colder 6y agoI thought the change in node name was relative to the percent improvement in density, i.e 70% increase in density 5 / 1.7 ~= 3
- tmd83 6y agoWas there a point lets say at 130nm when the name of the process was meaningful and if so what component of the gate was at X nm for it to be called a X nm process?
- sroussey 6y agoProblem is that gate design itself changed.
- jl2718 6y agoI brought up the first ever 110nm node and it was based on the memory half-cell width in a standard way that we didn’t use because it didn’t functionally scale down to that size anymore, but the lithography equipment could make something that passed Intel’s TEM inspection according to expert analysis. So, from what I understand, not since Intel left the DRAM business.
- melq 6y agoIf this Forbes article is correct, a nanometer of silicon is about 2 atoms wide. Can't get much smaller than that! https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhandy/2011/12/14/how-big-is-a-nanometer/?sh=4d94658c6fb0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhandy/2011/12/14/how-big-is-...
- trynumber9 6y agoIf you look at the actual measurements of their 3nm process they are not near 3nm. The smallest dimension is nearer to 10x that.
- cbozeman 6y agoAccording to Jim Keller we still have a very long way to go. Lex Fridman's podcast interview with him on YouTube is amazing.
- supernova87a 6y agoLet's just be clear, Jim Keller is amazing. Lex Fridman is a wooden, uninspiring interviewer who sounds like a stoned teenager, asks choppy, non-sequitur questions, and seems to only be able to get celebrities on his show because he gets other celebrities on his show.
- prvc 6y agoSo what? Doesn't bear on whether that podcast is worthy listening. Uncalled for, tbh.
- swalsh 6y agoLex has very solid content, but I do somewhat agree with the parent commentor. His delivery and style has alot of room for improvement... that does matter for a podcast. I don't blame anyone for struggling to listen to a 2-3 hour podcast where some quirk about the host or the guest distracts you in some unrelated way.
- supernova87a 6y agoI didn't say that it means you shouldn't listen. I just really don't like the interviewer's style and don't know why he's gotten the fame he has.
- smattiso 6y agoPersonally I really like Lex's interview style. He is clearly a very intelligent, thoughtful and compassionate person. He asks great questions, listens to the guest, and always has an upbeat personality. What more do you want? I personally am tired of interviewers that are way over the top like most comedians, pop scientists, etc. I hope he reads this keep it up dude.
- 6y ago
- subb 6y agoAbsolutely. At some point, the electrons in the transistor experience quantum tunneling - i.e. they jump over the gate. Which means it's not a very useful gate anymore... See this great video about it : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67S4IyakRko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67S4IyakRko
- jl2718 6y agoThere’s nothing special about quantum tunneling versus ordinary conduction. You lower the energy barrier, the probability of crossing the barrier increases exponentially. Think about how GAA works. Makes no sense from the electrostatic perspective, right? All it’s doing is lowering the tunneling barrier from source to drain. The issue with size is the ratio of energy states in the interfaces between materials versus bulk crystal.
- hajile 6y agoQuantum tunneling can happen when no conduction is supposed to be happening which isn't desirable. On the other hand, when we can master the QFET, quantum tunneling gets turned into a desirable trait with huge benefits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QFET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QFET
- jleahy 6y agoThe dirty secret is that you can't really make a transistor much smaller than about 30nm. The contacted gate pitch (for all intents and purposes this is the 'size' of a transistor) actually only decreased 50% from 28nm to 7nm (from 117nm to 64nm).
- stunt 6y agoYou should read about EUV tech and what ASML does if you are interested on this topic.
- MangoCoffee 6y agoeven if you can't go lower than 1nm or whatever. three-dimensional integrated circuit, chiplet, improvement in packaging...etc. is pushing semiconductor to better performance. i don't think you can judge it with Moore's law anymore.
- raxxorrax 6y agoAn atom is about 0.2nm?