5 nanometer

In semiconductor manufacturing, the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors defines the 5 nanometer (5 nm) node as the technology node following the 7 nm node.

Transistors at the 7 nm scale were first produced by researchers in the first decade of the 21st century – the process scale may represent the end of Moore's Law scaling for electronic devices.

As of 2016, no 5 nm scale devices have been commercially produced.

History

Background

The 5 nm node was once assumed by some experts to be the end of Moore's law.Transistors smaller than 7 nm will experience quantum tunnelling through their logic gates. Due to the costs involved in development, 5 nm is predicted to take longer to reach market than the 2 years estimated by Moore's law.

Technology demos

In 2006, a team of Korean researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the National Nano Fab Center codeveloped a 3 nm transistor, the world's smallest nanoelectronic device based on conventional technology, called a fin field-effect transistor (FinFET). It was the smallest transistor ever produced.