Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Jamus- t1_ixu17mk wrote

Reply to comment by baphometromance in Taiwan's TSMC founder says 3nm fab will be built in US by jussulent_tummy

Yeah, that's what's most amazing to me. It's getting so small so quickly. 7nm is still epically powerful now. And we're already at less than half that.

32

Greedyanda t1_ixu50el wrote

This isn't actually the size. TSMC has changed their naming conventions years ago and the market has followed.

58

atlusblue t1_ixub7du wrote

So how does it work or what is the scheme name?

8

Shuber-Fuber t1_ixue0yj wrote

https://www.quora.com/Will-the-physical-size-of-the-processors-get-any-smaller-than-7-nano-metres/answer/Yowan-Rajcoomar?ch=15&oid=169904226&share=3d67d0a9&srid=i7kNj&target_type=answer

Basically, "3nm" doesn't refer to actual feature size anymore. It just means that there's an improvement from previous "x-nm" gen (maybe better density, smaller leakage current, faster gate speed, etc).

Because ultimately, it's performance. If you can keep the same size but, say, reduce the gate switching time by half, you functionally just have twice the performance for a given number of transistors.

37

poqpoq t1_ixv36gf wrote

So at some point with this convention will we use negative nm? Or will we just drop to 0.9nm 0.8nm etc?

5

jared555 t1_ixv9zzo wrote

Picometers would be the next logical step which means they probably won't use it.

10

poqpoq t1_ixvc3n0 wrote

Yeah that was why I was wondering about stuff like 0.9nm. Pm won’t be recognizable to consumers and consumers will be confused that it’s a larger number.

2

kyler000 t1_ixvsf1y wrote

To be fair, most consumers don't care about the size. They just want a computer/phone that's fast.

2

jared555 t1_ixvdlig wrote

Looks like the last time they had to worry about it was around the 386->486 transition.

1

glamdivitionen t1_ixwkbau wrote

Nah, we'll probably leave meters altogether and switch to Ångströms pretty soon.

2

Lurker_Since_Forever t1_ixwu28x wrote

It's based on transistor density. Something that is twice as dense is sqrt(2) times smaller feature size. So doubling transistor density down from 10 is 10 -> 7 -> 5 -> 3 -> 2 -> measuring it in angstroms or picometers.

2

WolfResponsible8483 t1_ixvf1lc wrote

Intel has dropped the "nm" completely. Their 10nm was rename to Intel 7 - it was very similar to TSMC 7nm anyway. Upcoming nodes are named Intel 4 and Intel 3.

4

urmyheartBeatStopR t1_ixvbmyc wrote

It's a gimmick not the real size. Anything 5nm and beyond is now just a marketing term for the technology generation like 2.0 and stuff.

They started to stack transistors (3d) and stuff now so they can fit more. It's not like they shrunk it even further yet.

3