1nm is the real physical size of a transistor that you would need, to get equivalent performance characteristics, if the transistor's other layout characteristi

1nm is the real physical size of a transistor that you would need, to get equivalent performance characteristics, if the transistor's other layout characteristics were fixed in 1997. The divergence is because when FinFET layout was introduced, it gave as much of as improvement as a node shrink would have otherwise done. See also: AMD Athlon "3000" CPUs, clocked at only 2.x GHz, performing "as well as an equivalent" 3.0GHz Intel CPU,