5 ms·
The race between Intel, Samsung, and TSMC to ship the first 2 nm chip
- bhouston 3y agoI love the fast progress! How many years until we start measuring chip feature sizes in picometers? When can I get a 500pm chip?
- AlotOfReading 3y agoModern node names are more marketing labels than a description of any real feature size of the underlying process. We can "have" 500pm anytime we want by simply naming a node appropriately. There aren't any serious roadmaps out to the picoscale, but people have proposed a future Angstrom roadmap beyond 1.4nm. 500pm would be A5, or sometime in the late 2030s. As an aside, 500pm is just about enough to fit 2 whole silicon atoms, so it's hard to imagine it ever being a real description of a feature size.
- metadat 3y agoIs 2nm only 4 silicon atoms? Or what is the actual feature size?
- mlyle 3y agoA silicon atom is about 0.2-0.3 nm. "3nm" process has a metal pitch of about 24nm.
- throwaway5959 3y agoSo at that point we’re basically stuck? Maybe new materials will help? Stacking?
- imtringued 3y agoIf you stack transistors, the process node will indeed go smaller than a single atom, even a hydrogen atom.
- throwaway5959 3y agoThank you that gives me hope for the future.
- dietr1ch 3y agoJust make some smaller silicon
- firebat45 3y agoLike, duh. Scientists just be overcomplicating things.
- DeathArrow 3y agoSamsung might be first, but do they have the yield and the scale?
- SirMaster 3y agoIs anything about the chip actually 2nm? I thought it was all just a marketing number these days.