2 Nanometer Transistors

[EasyGoing1]

IBM, having recently (within the last two years I believe) broken the size barrier and can now manufacture transistors that are 2 nanometers in size, which is roughly 4 to 10 times the size of an atom, they claim they can get 50 BILLION transistors on a wafer the size of a fingernail ... it makes me wonder ...

How on Earth does a schematic that large even get designed in the first place? Is CPU Engineering nothing more than a set of algorithms that place the transistors onto the schematic? No human being could possibly design something at that scale and keep track of whats going on in the circuit.

Anyone out there have any idea how these things are designed?

[stj]

Re: 2 Nanometer Transistors

it's probably like lego
take a cache, stitch it to a core and so-on
lots of pre-designed modules.

[Topcat]

Re: 2 Nanometer Transistors

Remember the old joke about flying spy devices the size of a fly? Doesn't seem like a joke anymore...

[eccerr0r]

Re: 2 Nanometer Transistors

vast majority of transistors is used for memory, so not like it's hard to make a very regular structure of transistors over and over again...
I also doubt the validity of the "announcement" ... people have been making announcements fast and loose for a long time now. Also, though they may really have made something small, when things get that small, it's hard to make them always work properly.

50 billion transistors is barely enough to make 1GB SRAM, would you like 1GB cache with your CPU?

[EasyGoing1]

Re: 2 Nanometer Transistors

vast majority of transistors is used for memory, so not like it's hard to make a very regular structure of transistors over and over again...
I also doubt the validity of the "announcement" ... people have been making announcements fast and loose for a long time now. Also, though they may really have made something small, when things get that small, it's hard to make them always work properly.

50 billion transistors is barely enough to make 1GB SRAM, would you like 1GB cache with your CPU?

I don't know how much cache do they put on CPUs these days? Been a long time since I cared enough about it to keep up ... but the 2-nanometer thing is impressive if it's correct. I thought they said something about quantum physics breaking down in this application at anything smaller than 5 nanometers ... which is still damn impressive given that it's only been what ... 30 or so years that we've been making CPUs? Are these transistors made from traditional PN material or is it some other magic compound that some propeller head invented?

[EasyGoing1]

Re: 2 Nanometer Transistors

Remember the old joke about flying spy devices the size of a fly? Doesn't seem like a joke anymore...

I think most people would flip the hell out if they knew what Uncle Sam had in terms of personally invasive tech ... Though when you think about the "fly on the wall" spy tech ... it would still take a considerable amount of energy to move that little thing through the air ... Im not sure it could be done without some kind of biochemical energy that can be refreshed "on the fly" somehow - lol