process technology
The particular manufacturing method used to make silicon chips, which is measured by how small the transistor is. The driving force behind the design of integrated circuits is miniaturization, and process technology boils down to the never-ending goal of smaller. It means more computing power per square inch and chips that can be placed into ever tighter quarters. As transistors get smaller, they switch faster and use less energy. See digital perfection.Feature Size Measured in Nanometers
The size of the features (the elements that make up the structures on a chip) are measured in nanometers. A 22 nm process technology refers to features 22 nm or 0.022 µm in size. Also called a "technology node" and "process node," early chips were measured in micrometers (see table below).
Historically, the feature size referred to the length of the silicon channel between source and drain in field effect transistors (see FET). Today, the feature size is typically the smallest element in the transistor.
From 1,000 Down to 90
The feature size of the 486 chip in 1989 was 1,000 nm (one micron). By 2003, it was 90 nm, reduced by a little less than one millionth of a meter. What may seem a minuscule reduction took a massive amount of money and R&D.
New Chips Are Not Always Smaller
At any given time, the smallest feature sizes are found on the latest, high-end CPU and SoC chips that cost several hundred dollars. However, 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) are used by the billions and sell for as little as 50 cents in quantity. They require far fewer transistors and do not need to be as dense. A $2 microcontroller may have feature sizes similar to the high-end chips a decade or two earlier. See microcontroller, CPU and SoC.
How Small Is Small?
To understand how tiny these transistor elements are, using state-of-the-art 5 nm feature sizes as an example, 16 thousand of them laid side-by-side are equal to the cross section of one human hair. See half-node and active area.
Semiconductor Feature Sizes(approximate for all vendors) Nanometers Micrometers MillimetersYear (nm) (µm) (mm)
1957 120,000 120.0 0.12
1963 30,000 30.0 0.03
1971 10,000 10.0 0.01
1974 6,000 6.0
1976 3,000 3.0
1982 1,500 1.5 **
1985 1,300 1.3 **
1989 1,000 1.0 **
1993 600 0.6 **
1996 350 0.35 **
1998 250 0.25 **
1999 180 0.18 **
2001 130 0.13 **
2003 90 0.09 **
2005 65 0.065
2008 45 0.045
2010 32 0.032
2012 22 0.022
2014 14 0.014
2017 10 0.010
2018 7 0.007
2020 5 0.005
2022 3 0.003
2024 2 0.002 ***
** Still used for MCUs
(see microcontroller).
*** In 2021, IBM announced 2nm nodes
for 2024-2025 production
(2nm is 4 atoms!)
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| Half a Micrometer in Five Years |
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| In the 1990s, the feature size of these AMD chips was reduced from .8 to .35 micrometers. Half a micrometer may seem insignificant, but not in the semiconductor world. That difference is 450 nanometers. (Images courtesy of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.) |
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