It started out as gate-length and then when we started building 3D transistors with FinFETs and gate-all-around, where the 2-dimensional gate-length is not comparable to “flat” transistors, they had to instead estimate the effective equivalent 2D gate-length that would give the same transistor density.
So the process name is now no longer a measure of any tangible feature size but more a descriptor of transistor density that is loosely consistent with the prior convention.
appreciate the explanation good to see that it isn’t actually purely marketing, in my opinion, and they try to keep the old meaning coherent with these more advanced generations
It started out as gate-length and then when we started building 3D transistors with FinFETs and gate-all-around, where the 2-dimensional gate-length is not comparable to “flat” transistors, they had to instead estimate the effective equivalent 2D gate-length that would give the same transistor density.
So the process name is now no longer a measure of any tangible feature size but more a descriptor of transistor density that is loosely consistent with the prior convention.
appreciate the explanation good to see that it isn’t actually purely marketing, in my opinion, and they try to keep the old meaning coherent with these more advanced generations
yes, I see now why you just said, “marketing”
lol
still, quite interesting
I wasn’t the original commenter but I suppose you could call it marketing, sure.