dirschau t1_jeeogbz wrote on March 31, 2023 at 1:52 PM

Reply to comment by richiehustle in ELI5: Why computer chips nanometers progress is gradual? Why can not the technology bump up to the lowest nm possible immediately since the concept and mechanisms of it is already known and studied by richiehustle

I know it'll sound sarcastic, but it's a good illustration of the point:

Go build a racecar, personally, right now. No, you can't practice making a simpler one first. Straight to trophy winning.

Well, what's the problem? Racecars already exist, so it's not even like you need to develop new technologies. Go, do it. Then also make a profit, because no one's giving you free money here. Chop chop.

In this analogy, the only difference between you and them is that the current chip makers know how to make a moped.

Making stuff from scratch isn't easy, and these guys are working literally at the edge of what's physically possible. It's not even completely sure if you can go even smaller than currently available.

For comparison, you can't make a 0.01 nm chip because that's less than half the size of a hydrogen atom.

And to even do the current work, you need to come up with and build whole new tools and machines, which cost billions, because they're literally manipulating atoms at this point.