this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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So what is the actual transistor size then? And why use an SI unit then anyway? Why not use femto-bananas then when it does not reflect the real size?
Smallest features are around 13nm due to EUV wavelength. I think people incorporated hacks to etch smaller stuff but not much smaller.
I think it is similar stuff as with Moore's "law" that is not an actuall law only a trend or myth.
In the 70' 80' 90' that number represented an actuall size and it stuck into 00' 10' and 20'
There's also an argument out there that companies should stop talking about feature sizes (that are fudged for marketing all the time, anyway) and instead talk about density of components.
Also, if you think Moore's Law is about density of components, then the industry has kept up. However, that's not actually what Moore claimed way back when: https://wumpus-cave.net/post/2024/03/2024-03-20-moores-law-is-dead/index.html
Those are all marketing names not real dimensions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/14_nm_process
God, it's like women's clothing sizes all over again.
Angstrom was invented in physics because they needed a length unit that was smaller than SI prefixes would allow. The industry only picked it up once they got to a certain level.
(Contrary to what a lot of people think, physicists do not strictly follow SI. They bypass it for reasons of convenience all the time.)
It's kind of like needing the proper units for the scale you need to work at.