I am way late to this thread, but I want to address a big point of confusion -- just because you have equipment capable of very fine resolution, doesn't mean yo

I am way late to this thread, but I want to address a big point of confusion -- just because you have equipment capable of very fine resolution, doesn't mean you actually have to use it to produce features that small. You can keep on making 103nm gates even with equipment that can resolve 27nm features. The biggest problem with designs that have larger features is if they also specify much thicker film stacks. You can put a pretty thick layer of just about anything on a 4 inch wafer before it turns into a taco. Your ability to do that with a 12 inch wafer is pretty limited. Also, just because you have a fab set up for a given process node, it doesn't mean that all of your photolithography equipment has the same capabilities. Some layers have more relaxed dimensions and can use less expensive optics, masks, and resists. A fab will have a mix of equipment suited to its process needs.