we've gone from playing text-based zork on a machine that weighs as much as a
child to having 4k video cameras in our
pockets in the space of only about 40 years and a huge reason behind that is
that we've been able to fit more and more transistors into our processors
over the years transistors are the tiny building blocks of electronics that form
logic gates enable your gadgets to think these days we've gotten accustomed to
transistors that are somewhere between 5 and 20 nanometers wide that's
5 to 20 billionths of a meter to power our electronic toys
to put that into perspective cpus with 600 nanometer transistors came on the
scene in 1994 meaning they've shrunk by over a hundred
times since then which has enabled us to build processors that are far more
powerful but now we're getting to the point where transistors are so small
that we may have to start measuring them in terms of angstroms rather than
nanometers and although this might sound like just another marketing move there
are a couple of reasons behind it as the transistors get this small
it becomes impossible to express their sizes in integers anymore if you stick
with the traditional nanometer system it just doesn't go that low each time we
shrink down to a new size of transistor or process node the amount the size
decreases also sounds less impressive in other words going from 22 nanometers to
10 is just as important as we're moving from 600 to 250. so as we get down below
two nanometers generational improvements might not sound like a big deal if we
express them as having transistors that are only a fraction of a nanometer
smaller but in reality it's a big increase of the number of transistors
actually on the chip Intel already has plans to switch to the angstrom system
and they're on record saying that they want to start producing 20a chips in
2024 that's the same as two nanometers team
blue is planning for 18 angstroms to follow the next year and to put that
into context a single silicon atom is
about two angstroms in diameter so chip manufacturers are quickly starting to
run up against the limits of silicon as a base material Intel plans to pull this
off by redesigning transistors to be more space efficient such as with their
gate all-around approach which you can learn more about in this video the
general objective behind gate all around is to give the chip greater control over
current flow which can be a problem with such small transistors as well as
enabling transistors to be stacked atop each other more easily allowing for the
chip maker to cram even more transistors into a CPU another key to the process is
extreme ultraviolet lithography or euv
which uses shortwave uv light to etch smaller and smaller transistors into the
silicon Intel has been slow to adopt euv compared to samsung and tsmc and the
fact that there are only a handful of euv machines in the world and just one
company makes them hasn't helped but Intel is expected to be the first
company to get their hands on a high na euv machine which provides the type of
uv light that's needed to etch such tiny transistors
of course Intel doesn't have the best track record when it comes to getting
new chip designs off the ground but they're hoping this new manufacturing
process will help them avoid delays such as their well publicized difficulties
with their 10 nanometer chips all of this being said
one thing to keep in mind is that the exact numbers being slapped onto cpus
like 10 nanometer and 20 angstrom
aren't exact there actually isn't an industry standard method of measuring transistor
sizes meaning that AMD's 10 nanometer and Intel's 10 nanometer
aren't exactly the same Intel for their part is subtly
acknowledging this by simply naming upcoming nodes until 7 Intel 5 Intel 3
and Intel 20a without actually including nanometer or
angstrom or anything like that in the official designation but regardless of
exactly how small their newer processes will be
Intel is hoping that its new chip designs will not only make them more
competitive with AMD but also with samsung and tsmc team blue is hoping
that by using newer euv tech to make more power efficient chips they'll be
chosen as a contract manufacturer of smartphone cpus a key area that Intel
hasn't tried to compete in in many years
rip adam mobile i just hope it doesn't lead some kind of
fanboy war where one day mobile gamers scream at each other and youtube
comments over Intel versus samsung chips thanks to MSI for sponsoring this video
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more today at the link below thanks for watching guys like dislike check out our
other videos like maybe stacking chips maybe
what was that other Intel one we did larry anyway don't forget to subscribe
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