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TSMC's 2nm process will reportedly get another price hike — $30,000 per wafer for latest cutting-edge tech
(www.tomshardware.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2024
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This is what a lack of competition looks like.
However.... Twice the price of 4nm? The gains are fairly marginal from what I gather. I don't think many will bother.
It's both lack of competition and the end of Moores law. We've effectively reached the end of silicon gate sizes and the tooling complexity required to keep shrinking process nodes and increase transistor density is increasing exponentially, so semiconducters no longer get cheaper... and it's starting to push these cutting edge nodes outside of economic viability for consumer products. I'm sure TSMC is taking a very healthy profit cut for sure but the absolute magic they have to work to have 2nm work at all is beginning to be too much.
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?
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.
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.