Damn, this gets exciting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nanometer Will this mark the end of silicon chips? Or a whole new approach to making transistors?

They don't seem concerned at all, happily talking already about 7 and 5nm, despite the pioneer Intel encountering problems with 10nm.

But there wasn't a quantum barrier somewhere in this scales (less than 10nm) because there was too few atoms to dope the semiconductor material as type N or P? Will this be the new TSMC 20nm node?

Uhm, maybe it's just me, but do you guys really expect them to have it ready in 2020? Maybe they want to have it, but with low yields we're more likely to see anything with such a small scale being available in small numbers, and then they will sell it to mobile manufacturer probably. That's just what I think will happen, so don't panic.

But there wasn't a quantum barrier somewhere in this scales (less than 10nm) because there was too few atoms to dope the semiconductor material as type N or P? Will this be the new TSMC 20nm node?

http://www.kitguru.net/components/anton-shilov/samsung-vows-to-start-10nm-chip-production-in-2016-shows-first-wafers/ Guess it's been solved for 10nm. Bet afterwards they'll transition from SiO2 to SiGe. 7nm should give 50% perf over 10nm. Who knows... there are even working 1.8nm carbon transistors. And beyond... http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-07/22/tiniest-processor-moores-law

Seems more like PR or wishfull thinking than anything. There is already a quantum effect below ~8 nm. But hey, if the'll make it work for large scale production I'll be only happy.

Now we just need to see actual tangible benefits of the silicon shrinks. Comparing the 32nm i7-2600K and 14nm i7-6700k doesn't yield much progress. Both are awesome CPUs but are limited in differences. Four cores eight threads on each. CPU's are basically the same in performance with the only significant improvements coming on the iGPU, instruction set, PCIe revision, and memory controller of the 6700K. Well, I guess I kind of thought about it and those are a lot of changes...

It's not that they can't produce it now, it's only because they want to make as much funny papir (money) as possible.. Hense that money slow down technology state. ****ing sad.

It's not that they can't produce it now, it's only because they want to make as much funny papir (money) as possible.. Hense that money slow down technology state. ****ing sad.

I'm sorry but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I would slightly, somewhat, kind of agree with you with nearly every other industry. But chip fabrication? No. Are these companies making money? Yes obviously, it is a business afterall and they have people to feed. Are they also at the complete forefront of the boundaries of physics? Absolutely. To the point where nearly all the friends I have who graduated with me from RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) with MME degrees, are all perusing post-grad theoretical physics/particle physics because none of the companies doing this stuff will hire them without it. Fabing is probably the only mass-scale industry where the application of quantum mechanics actually plays a role. Quantum effects don't start 8nm, they started years ago. They've been using FE tunneling in practical fab processes like NAND memory for years. This isn't even to mention that companies like Intel, with $5B R&D budgets that are trying hard as hell to compete in the mobile sector, LITERALLY have the best engineers on the face of the planet working the problem. And even their stuff gets delayed for years at time. Or the fact that TSMC has lost several major contracts in the last few years, so why in gods name would they be slowing down when Samsung is already surpassing them? The idea that they are milking money doesn't make sense from a technical perspective nor does it make sense from a business perspective. It's probably one of the most competitive sectors in computing, with companies like ARM/Intel/Samsung/TSMC/GF/Nvidia/AMD/Huawei/Mediatek and countless others are all trying to one up eachother.

I'm sorry but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I would slightly, somewhat, kind of agree with you with nearly every other industry. But chip fabrication? No. Are these companies making money? Yes obviously, it is a business afterall and they have people to feed. Are they also at the complete forefront of the boundaries of physics? Absolutely. To the point where nearly all the friends I have who graduated with me from RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) with MME degrees, are all perusing post-grad theoretical physics/particle physics because none of the companies doing this stuff will hire them without it. Fabing is probably the only mass-scale industry where the application of quantum mechanics actually plays a role. Quantum effects don't start 8nm, they started years ago. They've been using FE tunneling in practical fab processes like NAND memory for years. This isn't even to mention that companies like Intel, with $5B R&D budgets that are trying hard as hell to compete in the mobile sector, LITERALLY have the best engineers on the face of the planet working the problem. And even their stuff gets delayed for years at time. Or the fact that TSMC has lost several major contracts in the last few years, so why in gods name would they be slowing down when Samsung is already surpassing them? The idea that they are milking money doesn't make sense from a technical perspective nor does it make sense from a business perspective. It's probably one of the most competitive sectors in computing, with companies like ARM/Intel/Samsung/TSMC/GF/Nvidia/AMD/Huawei/Mediatek and countless others are all trying to one up eachother.

TSMC, Samsung, Intel, Global Foundries, AMD all have the absolute best minds in their fields, the absolute best technology and resources and none of them are sure, or can agree, how much further down past 10nm we can even go. 5nm, if you allow no space between them, is 25 silicon atoms across. And you need billions of those to make a working chip. This is not some regular day at the office, where you just fill in some spreadsheets and get your answer. This is: You fill out your spreadsheet, but pieces of ****ing Jimmy in Accounting's spreadsheet just show up in random cells on your screen because, today, Jimmy's spreadsheet decided they didn't like being cells and instead wanted to be waves. These companies don't even have a material, currently, they can make small enough to even be a true 16 or 14nm transistor.

Mark my words TSMC: Keep Dreaming! After Intel will have 5nm maybe you,TSMC, are allowed to have 10nm.Untill then stay with 16nm. 😉

4-5nm then new materials to get higher frequencies? What a world we live in when atoms are getting too big for us.

Gallium nitride.

TSMC, Samsung, Intel, Global Foundries, AMD all have the absolute best minds in their fields, the absolute best technology and resources and none of them are sure, or can agree, how much further down past 10nm we can even go. 5nm, if you allow no space between them, is 25 silicon atoms across. And you need billions of those to make a working chip. This is not some regular day at the office, where you just fill in some spreadsheets and get your answer. This is: You fill out your spreadsheet, but pieces of ****ing Jimmy in Accounting's spreadsheet just show up in random cells on your screen because, today, Jimmy's spreadsheet decided they didn't like being cells and instead wanted to be waves. These companies don't even have a material, currently, they can make small enough to even be a true 16 or 14nm transistor.

Any sources for these ludicrous claims or did you just made all that up??

Wishful thinking, I thinking.

TSMC isn't claiming they'll have 5nm ready for volume production in 2020. They are simply expecting to be able to fab a chip using 5nm transistors by 2020. None of us have any idea wtf is really going on inside TSMC or what they're really doing. We simply know what their PR says. Unless you actually work in the field just STFU, sit back and expect to be disappointed when it gets delayed for technical reasons like the rest of us.

Now we just need to see actual tangible benefits of the silicon shrinks. Comparing the 32nm i7-2600K and 14nm i7-6700k doesn't yield much progress. Both are awesome CPUs but are limited in differences. Four cores eight threads on each. CPU's are basically the same in performance with the only significant improvements coming on the iGPU, instruction set, PCIe revision, and memory controller of the 6700K.

As well as increased power efficiency, the main benefit from a smaller process node is being able to cram more transistors into the same space. The problem with CPUs at present is that it's not easy to translate those extra transistors into better performance. One simple way is to add more cores. Intel have 18 core 36 thread Xeon CPUs and I'm sure we'll see higher core counts as die shrinks continue. But, of course, gaming and even surprisingly lots of productivity tasks aren't able to use those extra cores effectively. For GPUs on the other hand, it's much easier to put the extra transistors to good use. Case in point: A Titan X has roughly 50% more transistors than a GTX 980, which Nvidia has used to give it 50% more CUDA cores, texture units, ROPs and a 50% wider memory bus. If clocked the same, you'll find that a Titan X is roughly 50% faster than the 980... those extra transistors are translating into extra performance. I think the success (or failure!) of future die shrinks will have a bigger impact on GPU performance than consumer CPUs, at least for the next few years.

I still remember when 13 micrometer is a feature