Eli5: How is the same size chip now able to carry so much more memory?
In: 6
The storage cells are much smaller.
The overall size is frequently constrained by the interface pins.
Take a sheet of paper, and write a bunch of 1s and 0s on one line, try to make them big, and visible from a distance.
Then, flip it over, and write a bunch of 1s and 0s, try to make them as small as possible to fit more of them per line, and on the entire sheet.
And just like that, you did the same thing that computer scientists have been doing with computer memory since it got created.
The transistors/resistors are much smaller than they once were, approaching the size of atoms, and therefore able to cram much more into it.
They’re able to make the circuits much smaller. And now they’re stacking them in 3D. So before you had maybe a 10×10 grid, now you have a 20x20x20 cube.
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