A question about processors.

[yanquii]

What is the die? and what is this nm deal that I keep seeing about processor dies? Like 65nm and so on? Also, why is it that the smaller the better?


Thank you, supernerds.

 

[Bobthelost]

nm stands for nano meter, or 10^-9 meters.

It refers to the size of the transistors (i think) that are being used inside the CPU. The smaller the transistors the better because it takes less time for the signals to move from one transistor to the other, they turn on and off faster and use less power to do so. Since they use less power it means you have less interference, less problems with heating and in real terms can increase the speed of the chip. It all gets wonderfuly/horribly complex very very quickly.

Also if you can make the transistors smaller then you can make more CPUs from each wafer of silicon. The way the chips are made is with a pizza shaped disc of ultra pure silicon, which are then get processed in an arcane and complex manner. If you can make each individual CPU smaller then you can fit more onto each wafer of silicon, which id obviously good news as you end up with 20 CPUs rather than 15.

 

[MrDudeMan]

the die is the actual processor. it is layers and layers of silicon doped with boron and phosphorus (or others). basically, if you dont know much about how this stuff works, you can think of the millions of transistors as tons of on/off switches. turning on the right ones can move the data around, multiply/divide/add/subtract, erase, or tons of other things.

the process size you hear about, i.e. 90nm, 65nm, etc., is the distance between nodes - lines of basically equal width and spacing. interestingly, the optics used to create the images can have a much bigger wavelength than what the process indicates. for example, the 80-90nm gate widths were created using ~250nm light (xrays).

edit: now that i think about it, this sort of smells like homework if it is, you really should research it yourself since you will learn a lot. plus, it is interesting stuff.

 

[yanquii]

Thanks for the responses, that helps out a ton. i know I need to do a lot of homework, but this topic seems to be rather in depth and there is a lot that I need to learn. Knowing the basics of it will steer me into the right direction towards what exactly to look for in dealing with the super technical stuff. I just wish I could find a site to lays it out simply.

Thanks again!