Like… I can’t even imagine something this small. How can you produce a transistor smaller than 10nm, especially billions of them all working flawlessly?
I understand that CPUs have cores disabled due to manufacturing defects but… even so we’re talking about what feels like a mind-boggling level of precision.
How is it done?
In: Engineering
First you start with a base. Then you put down a layer of stuff you want to draw with, call it icing. Then you put down a layer of stuff that is hardened by light, call it ink. Then on a separate mask that is much larger than your base, you create the pattern of things you want to remove. This mask can be big so it is easier to make. Then you put that close to the base, and focus a very bright light on the base through the mask. Think of the light as the bottom of a triangle, the base is the tip, and the mask is in the middle. This lets you draw the features on the mask much larger than they will be on the base. As long as the light is very small wavelength, you can etch small features onto the ink.
Once you etch the features on the ink you can wash off the remainder with a chemical that can remove the non-hardened ink. Now the you can put down a chemical that dissolves the parts of the icing that is not covered in ink. Then you put down a chemical that dissolves the remaining ink. Now you are left with a layer of icing that has the opposite of the pattern that you made with the mask.
You can also do the opposite of this, you can make the mask the same as the pattern you want in the icing, and put down ink that is damaged by light instead of hardened.
So a key to this process is having very bright light that has very small wavelength, and a lens that can let you focus the light inwards in a way that lets you project the pattern of the mask onto the ink on the base. This is like the opposite of a shadow puppet where you make your finger look enormous on the wall by putting a flashlight close to your finger.
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