I quite agree as marketing gets in the way of making sense of the truly teeny-tiny. Because of quantum mechanics maybe Moore’s Law is defunct if only applied to a few layers. True 3D production may be the answer but with today’s technology this may not be possible. Yet the answer could be stacking chips in a true 3D fashion while employing the very latest in cooling technology.
Happy computing. Murray 🙂 On Thu, Jul 9, 2026 at 11:08 AM Paul Koning via cctalk < [email protected]> wrote: > The current scaling numbers are in many ways marketing numbers rather > than a reflection of the geometric realities of earlier decades. Early on > a single geometry increment would apply more or less to most of the chip. > That's no longer true. So to the extent that 2 nm geometry appears at all, > it's only in one or a few layers, with most layers having significantly > larger geometry. > > Nevertheless, those numbers are still mindboggling. Especially when you > consider the machine (the EUV stepper) that has to project those patterns > at that resolution onto the wafer, at high speed. The fact that it's > possible at all is just amazing; the fact that only one company in the > world is capable of doing it isn't much of a surprise. > > I saw a video about that technology which said that it's analogous to > shooting at a dime on the moon, from earth, and asking "which side of the > dime do you want me to hit?" I think that's a slight exaggeration, but > hitting WIlilam Tell's apple on the moon, from earth, seems accurate > enough. Yowza. > > The big problem at those tiny geometries is that devices are small enough > that quantum mechanics is a major source of trouble. For example, > insulators that small aren't really insulators. > > paul > > > On Jul 8, 2026, at 8:41 PM, Murray McCullough via cctalk < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > > We can stand in awe as classic computerists at the advancement of > > technology: I recently read that chip technology size is at 2 nanometers > > for ultra-large scale processors. In 1971 it was 10,000 nanometers or 10 > > microns. This is a 5000x reduction in size in 55 years. One has to ask: > Is > > Moore’s Law still alive? > > > > Happy computing? > > > > Murray :-) > >
