this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2024
190 points (99.5% liked)

Technology

59287 readers
5184 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I was under the impression that anything under like 10nm was just marketing and doesn't actually refer to transistor density in any meaningful way?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago

It is marketing and it does have meaningful connection to the litho features, but the connection is not absolute. For example Samsung's 5nm is noticeably more power hungry than TSMC's 5nm.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The number has some connection to transistor density, in the sense that a lower number means generally higher density. However there is not any physical feature on the chip that is actually 3nm in length.

This has been true since the late 90s probably.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Late 90s was 350nm down to 180nm (Known as 0.35um and 0.18um respectively). Things were still pretty honest around then.

2010s is probably where most of the shenanigans started.