this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2026
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If I'm not entirely mistaken there is still some basis to the nanometre number, it just doesn't refer to the actual smallest feature size or gate pitch anymore. Basically in the mid-2000 Dennard scaling stopped working and ever since the nanometre numbers are "made up". Dennard scaling was how most progress was made by just shrinking transistors. But that doesn't mean just because Dennard scaling doesn't work anymore there is no progress, it's just harder to achieve. So the semiconductor manufacturers just continued naming their fabrication methods as if Dennard scaling still worked. So basically a modern "3nm" process is equivalent in some way to what would theoretically be possible if you had an actual 3nm process.
They should count up by some benchmark. If x/mm^2 doesn't capture the improvement anymore, and they aren't shrinking things much anymore, benchmark some common output.
It's not necessarily about transistors/mm^2, there is also power consumption and clock frequency. Back in the mid-2000's clock frequencies stopped just under 4GHz and then went down for a few years before going back up to way past 4GHz in the last ten years or so.
Yup that's exactly what I'm talking about. They need a benchmark for what it can do, not the size of a part or a made up size for marketing. Or just disconnect the specs from the marketing name entirely.
Its at least somewhat based on the transistor density increase they get from other techniques right? Like "3 nm" is the equivalent transistor size they'd need to get the same transistor density using 2005 chip design.