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We've gone from playing text-based Zork on a machine that weighs as much as a child

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to having 4K video cameras in our pockets in the space of only about 40 years.

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And a huge reason behind that is that we've been able to fit more and more transistors into our processors over the years.

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Transistors are the tiny building blocks of electronics that form logic gates that enable your gadgets to think.

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These days, we've gotten accustomed to transistors that are somewhere between 5 and 20 nanometers wide.

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That's 5 to 20 billionths of a meter to power our electronic toys.

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To put that into perspective, CPUs with 600 nanometer transistors came on the scene in 1994,

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meaning they've shrunk by over 100 times since then, which has enabled us to build processors that are far more powerful.

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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.

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And although this might sound like just another marketing move, there are a couple of reasons behind it.

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As the transistors get this small, it becomes impossible to express their sizes in integers anymore

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if you stick with the traditional nanometer system. It just doesn't go that low.

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Each time we shrink down to a new size of transistor or process node, the amount the size decreases also sounds less impressive.

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In other words, going from 22 nanometers to 10 is just as important as when we went from 600 to 250.

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So as we get down below 2 nanometers, generational improvements might not sound like a big deal

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if we express them as having transistors that are only a fraction of a nanometer smaller.

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But in reality, it's a big increase of the number of transistors actually on the chip.

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Intel already has plans to switch to the angstrom system,

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and they're on record saying that they want to start producing 20A chips in 2024.

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That's the same as 2 nanometers. Team Blue was planning for 18 angstroms to follow the next year, and to put that into context,

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a single silicon atom is about two angstroms in diameter.

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So chip manufacturers are quickly starting to run up against the limits of silicon as a base material.

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Intel plans to pull this off by redesigning transistors to be more space efficient,

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such as with their gate all around approach, which you can learn more about in this video.

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The general objective behind gate all around is to give the chip greater control over current flow,

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which can be a problem with such small transistors as well as enabling transistors to be stacked atop each other more easily,

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allowing for the chip maker to cram even more transistors into a CPU.

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Another key to the process is extreme ultraviolet lithography, or EUV,

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which uses shortwave UV light to extra smaller and smaller transistors into the silicon.

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Intel has been slow to adopt EUV compared to Samsung and TSMC,

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and the fact that there are only a handful of EUV machines in the world,

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and just one company makes them, hasn't helped.

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But Intel is expected to be the first company to get their hands on a high-annay EUV machine,

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which provides the type of UV light that's needed to etch such tiny transistors.

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Of course, Intel doesn't have the best track record when it comes to getting new chip designs off the ground,

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but they're hoping this new manufacturing process will help them avoid delays

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such as their well-publicized difficulties with their 10nm chips.

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All of this being said, one thing to keep in mind is that the exact numbers being slapped on a CPUs

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like 10nm and 20 angstrom aren't exact.

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There actually isn't an industry-standard method of measuring transistors sizes,

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meaning that AMD's 10nm and Intel's 10nm aren't exactly the same.

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Intel, for their part, is suddenly acknowledging this by simply naming upcoming nodes

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Intel 7, Intel 5, Intel 3, and Intel 20a

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without actually including nanometer or angstrom or anything like that in the official designation.

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But regardless of exactly how small their newer processes will be,

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Intel is hoping that its new chip designs will not only make them more competitive with AMD,

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but also with Samsung and TSMC.

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Team Blue is hoping that by using newer UV tech to make more power-efficient chips,

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they'll be chosen as a contract manufacturer of smartphone CPUs.

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A key area that Intel hasn't tried to compete in in many years.

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Rip at a mobile.

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I just hope it doesn't lead some kind of fanboy war where one day mobile gamers

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will scream at each other in YouTube comments over Intel vs Samsung chips.

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Thanks for watching, guys. Like, dislike, check out our other videos, like maybe stacking chips,

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maybe what was that other Intel one we did earlier?

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Don't forget to subscribe and follow, and maybe comment some video suggestions of your own below.