I believe Macrumors should change its headline for this article since Apple will be using a more compact/smaller die for its next 5nm chip. The headline describes a 4nm chip which is patently false.
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A16 Bionic Chip in iPhone 14 Reportedly Set to Be Based on '4nm' Process [Updated]
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Feels like we're reaching a plateau fairly soon. I mean we are already at tick-tick-tock cycle here. I'm not discounting the amazing feat in reaching this point, but there are better be other improvements in instruction sets and specialized cores (eg. The ISP and the ML cores can still be improved). The trick will be in those things in the future when simple size reduction is no longer feasible.
These were the first two words which jumped into my head as soon as I read the post. I was under the impression that it was a nightmare to avoid at distances smaller than 5nm.
Yes, it clearly works, you are correct. Nobody cares about transistor density, it’s easier just to talk about the nonometer moniker.
5 nano meter not mili. That's 5x10E-9 Metres. It's an indication of how small the features are on the chip. It used to be the smallest structure. Now it's mostly marketing, but its an indication of how complex you can make a chip economically. The nice thing about silicon is that performance improves and power consumption improves as you make the transistors smaller. It's just tricky (and expensive) to do. Intel might argue that their 10nm is more like TSMC's 7nm ....
It's really no different then a new iPhone these days. It is marketing. TSMC and their 5nm node is just a updated version of their previous nodes, that will have updates such as architecture and a higher transistor density. Similar to the difference between a iPhone 12 and iPhone 13.
What Do "7nm" and "10nm" Mean for CPUs, and Why Do They Matter?
CPUs are made using billions of tiny transistors, electrical gates that switch on and off to perform calculations.www.howtogeek.com
It actually does mean something.
This article is not accurate like many others out there. There is nothing on TSMCs 7nm chip that actually has 7nm dimensions just like there is nothing on Intel's 10nm node that is 10nm. In fact as far as I understand Intel's 10nm node and TSMC's 7nm node have similar transistor densities and performance. Node names matching transistor size died with the advent of the fin-fet transistor.
https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/********/node-name-nonsense-2013-10/
And another on wikichip explaining the evolution:
Technology Node - WikiChip
The technology node (also process node, process technology or simply node) refers to a specific semiconductor manufacturing process and its design rules. Different nodes often imply different circuit generations and architectures. Generally, the smaller the technology node means the smaller the...
en.wikichip.org
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You do. That used to be the case but not after the advent of the fin-fet transistor (~8 years ago).
Cosmic implantationWhat will happen after 1 nm?