Gadgetory

so I was scrolling through a few articles trying to answer the following question what exactly does 14 nanometers mean when it comes to central and graphics processing units particularly the Polaris and skylake lineups trusted reviews.com claims that the term 14 nanometers quote refers to the size of the transistors that are used to make a whole integrated circuit or chip this is not correct and I sincerely hope that trusted reviews fixes this sentence once this video airs let's discuss what this size actually defines the Intel skylake i7 6700 K was created on a 14 nanometer fabrication note the AMD Polaris R X 480 was also created on a 14 nanometer note fun fact so or the iPhone 6s and galaxy s6 so this does not mean that individual transistors within each die or 14 nanometers long tall wide however you want to look at it it means none of those things in fact by its definition alone it doesn't even have to describe an aspect of a transistor so here's what it does mean in the case of the two affer mentioned processors the term 40 nanometers or any lithographic length for that matter is defined as the degree of precision within each fabrication it details how precise individual edgings can be on the surface of a silicon wafer and what this number physically describes ultimately depends on the thinness parallel points on each transistor well that's what it used to define each of the billions of field effect transistors comprising a single processor carry a source drain and a number of gates the gate ultimately controls the flow of electrons between the latter and in modern 14 nanometer processors wraps tightly around each fin on a transistor in an effort to reduce current leakage once upon a time this length actually meant something typically the length of the transistor gate but as senior fellow and technology and manufacturing group director of Intel mark Bohr proclaims he currently quote can't point to the one dimension that's 32 or 22 or 40 nanometers on any of these processors but some dimensions are smaller than the stated node name and others are larger so does this mean that 14 nanometers is a bit misleading well in short yes very it used to be quite simple with planar transistors however thanks to 3d thin arrays it gets quite complicated for instance and Intel has while i7 4790k is developed around a 22 nanometer node but individual fins on a single transistor within the cpu are only eight nanometers wide so by the very definition of a lithographic length technically Haswell CPUs are eight nanometers not twenty-two since eight nanometers is the finest degree of precision for that slice of silicon in short by today's standards these lengths are more like milestone indicators for companies an example this would be Global Foundries 14 nanometer chips Super Monte can Jerry vice president of advanced technology architecture a Global Foundries revealed his first generation 14 nanometer FinFET chips essentially recycled old 20 nanometers framework and simply quote plugged in FinFET making this new technology quote 20 nanometer FinFET in a way and quote meaning that the company simply reduced the width a graphic numeral for the sake of signifying the change from a planner to thin design misleading yes although most consumers are unlikely to notice except for all of you watching this video this is science studio thanks for learning with this