TSMC Breaks Ground on Fab 18 in Southern Taiwan Science Park

Real 5nm, or it's more like Intel 10/7 nm?

 

Can you all remember when 22nm came along? ( ivy bridge) there was a wide spread theory that silicon had come to the end of the road as fabbing below 22nm with silicon was impossible. But then a new type of lithography was invented and here we are still getting impossibly smaller and smaller.
We must be near then end of the road now? 3nm wt

 

At Intel current gen there's only a few atoms between + and - so it's getting harder to stop leaking current.
That's why they invented a new kind of transistor, and now new processes of fabbing.
Eventually we will hit the physics limit. Then, other solutions will have to be engineered.
AMD is already working on it: with infinity fabric, it's just a matter of gluing CCX complexes together and pairing those on a single ship.

 

They already have the solution google carbon nano tubes, that's going replace silicon for future chips.

 

I wonder how many years from this point in time until 0.5nm

 

That probably won't happen because that is literally 2 silicon atoms.Van der Waals radius of silicon atom is 210 pm or 0.2 nm

 

Probably go to 2nm and 1.5nm after 3 or maybe tighter, like 2.5 and 2. Depends on any advancements into new structure, materials and if they are ready. Since 3nm is slated for 2021 hitting the bottom would be around 2025. Could be delays but if not then something new would have to be ready for 2027. Then again they could milk/delay it by only moving down 0.1 nm at a time.

 

With various competing fabs I don't think they'll delay/milk it much.
Remember: there are 2 or 3 big players, but then there's a bunch of unknown small fabs still at older processes trying to catch up.
This is why Samsung and Intel always invest and try to stay ahead, eventually those fabs will catch up.