eli5 How are transistors made so crazy small?
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Others answers have lithography down. The other thing to keep in mind is that transistors are extremely simple devices. They’re not like an oil refinery with pipes running all over the place going to different storage and reaction chambers–they’re essentially just three (or four if you include the substrate of FETs) regions of differently doped semiconductors abutting each other with a couple of metallic contacts.
It should also be noted that we are nearing the minimum viable size of transistors without new technological improvements. Modern IC transistors are so small that leakage currents are becoming a formidable challenge.
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