eli5 : How does reducing cpu’s lithography help its performance? couldnt you fit more stuff into a bigger cpu?

Question

eli5 : How does reducing cpu’s lithography help its performance? couldnt you fit more stuff into a bigger cpu?

In: Technology

Answer 1

lets go very simple.

a cirucit is basically a collection of gates that open en close, and depending on which are closed or opened the circuit gives a different result.

Now those gates require power to move, the smaller the gate, the less power you need to open and close it.

The problem is that the smaller the circuit, the easier it is for electric signal to jump to to a nearby circuit, (electron migration), so every time they make the lithography smaller, they also have to improve the process to avoid that.