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?
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I usually describe it as putting a stencil on then then blasting it with a fire-hose. They cover the wafer with a material then shine light on it through a design so that only certain areas are hit by the light (photolithography) Then they wash off those areas to make the stencil. Then it gets blasted with an element ion beam to change the properties of the material at the open locations (ion implantation). You can also use diffusion to change the material. Then you wash off the stencil and repeat from the start. This whole process can take months making all the different chips but it is the main cycle. It is very precise with how it is blasted to get the right depth and angle of ions into the material to give it the exact properties it needs. I only worked on ion implators so there may be other methods but fundamentally it’s stencil on, color in, stencil off.
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