eli5 how transistors can get so small

Question

I was watching the new 4nm transistor size for the new Qualcomm snapdragon 8 gen 2. How does the parts of processors get so small that they’re the same size as around a few dozen atoms?

In: 7

Answer 1

Something else that other people haven’t mentioned yet is that the node name no longer correlates to the actual size of the transistors. So the transistors in a “4 nm” process are not actually 4 nm wide, it is just a marketing term. It used to be that the node name was linked to the gate size, but the actual size of the transistors has stayed constant for a few years now. Performance gains are made with other architecture changes.