Will 7nm and 5nm CPU Process Tech Really Happen? 142
An anonymous reader writes "This article provides a technical look at the challenges in scaling chip production ever downward in the semiconductor industry. Chips based on a 22nm process are running in consumer devices around the world, and 14nm development is well underway. But as we approach 10nm, 7nm, and 5nm, the low-hanging fruit disappears, and several fundamental components need huge technological advancement to be built. Quoting: "In the near term, the leading-edge chip roadmap looks clear. Chips based on today's finFETs and planar FDSOI technologies will scale to 10nm. Then, the gate starts losing control over the channel at 7nm, prompting the need for a new transistor architecture. ... The industry faces some manufacturing challenges beyond 10nm. The biggest hurdle is lithography. To reduce patterning costs, Imec's CMOS partners hope to insert extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography by 7nm. But EUV has missed several market windows and remains delayed, due to issues with the power source. ... By 7nm, the industry may require both EUV and multiple patterning. 'At 7nm, we need layers down to a pitch of about 21nm,' said Adam Brand, senior director of the Transistor Technology Group at Applied Materials. 'That's already below the pitch of EUV by itself. To do a layer like the fin at 21nm, it's going to take EUV plus double patterning to round out of the gate. So clearly, the future of the industry is a combination of these technologies.'"
Re:Car analogy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Car analogy? (Score:5, Insightful)
We're trying to make smaller and smaller cars out of silicon, because then we can fit more cars onto parking lots. The number of cars we can fit onto a parking lot has been doubling approximately every 18 months for the past half-century, but we appear to be approaching some hard physical limits for the actual size of cars. In addition to the limits imposed by the size of the cars themselves (below a certain size, cars start interacting at a quantum level with the other cars around them), there are also challenges inherent in manufacturing cars at such a tiny scale. There is some new car-making technology on the horizon that may resolve these issues by using higher-frequency car-making lasers in our car foundries. But top researchers still have technical hurdles to pass before they can manufacture cars that are smaller than 7nm.
Will it last with 10yrs of continuous use? (Score:5, Insightful)
I worry about the reliability with tinyer and tinyer CPU feature size. ...how will those CPUs be doing, reliability-wise, 10yrs later?
When I buy something 'expensive', I expect it to last at least 10yrs, and CPUs are kinda expensive, to me.
(I still have an Athlon Thunderbird 700MHz Debian workstation that I use, for example, and it's still reliable.)
Re:Same story (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a limit we'll hit eventually, we're approaching circuits that are single digit atoms wide. No matter what we'll never get a circuit less than a single atom. Don't get me wrong, I don't think 10nm is going to be the problem but somewhere around single digit atoms wide we're going to run out of options to make them smaller.
Re:Car analogy? (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't sound like breaking the laws of physics: making the car lighter will make it faster, as well as (assuming you avoid exotic materials) making it cheaper.
It's not breaking the laws of physics, but it is ignoring the current state of materials technology. You have to build a lot of cars before you can get the cost of building an aluminum body down to the same as the cost of building a steel body, and carbon fiber (the only other credible alternative today) is always more expensive.
Also, they forgot "stronger". Cars which have a more rigid body not only handle better but they're actually more comfortable, because the suspension can be designed around a more rigid, predictable body. Getting all four of those things in the same package is the real challenge.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This affects our entire industry (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that we've been in that situation since the dawn of computers, don't you? Once we get close to filling needs, people come up with other needs. Once processor development more or less stalls out, people will still want better performance, but they won't get it by updating their systems any more. Software development is a pretty secure profession.