There has been a lot of discussion about new CPU manufacturing processes. Not long ago, everyone was talking about 10nm and 7nm. The most recent “nm” to enter the game is 5nm, which is already in use in some devices and will soon be available on PCs.

Newer 5nm designs, like previous manufacturing processes, promise improved power efficiency and performance, as well as pushing CPU technology forward in general. But, before we get into that, let’s talk about what a new manufacturing process and moving to a new process node entails.

New Process Node, what does it mean?

Changing to a new process essentially means changing the way a processor is made. This usually entails shrinking transistors to allow companies to fit more of them into a given area on silicon. When it comes to improving a processor, transistor density is the name of the game. The more transistors a processor has, the more calculations it can perform and thus the more powerful it is.

Companies use the ‘nm’ nomenclature to express the concept of an improved process node. Intel, for example, has been using 14nm CPUs in its desktops since 2014.

However, new processes and their associated “nm” numbers do not translate across companies. You can’t say that an Intel 10nm processor will be slower than an AMD 7nm processor, for example. This is partly due to the fact that the term “nm” does not serve as a universal benchmark against which to compare competing processors.

What Is “nm” All About?

The term “nm” stands for nanometer, a tiny measurement that is one-billionth of a meter. It’s tiny, and there was a time when process nodes were truly measured in actual nanometers. It usually defined the size of a transistor’s gate length and metal half-pitch (half the distance between the beginning of one metal interconnect and the next on a chip), which were both the same size.

However, this was no longer the case in the 1990s, and the ‘nm’ measurement has since become nothing more than a marketing term.

A new ‘nm’ size indicates a significant advancement in manufacturing technology, but it has nothing to do with a specific measurement you can perform on the processor itself.

Many critics argue that Intel’s 10nm node, which is currently used in laptops for CPU families like Tiger Lake and Ice Lake, is comparable to TSMC’s 7nm node.

So, why is the term ‘nm’ still in use? In other words, inertia. It’s what tech companies have always done, and it’s what they’ll continue to do.

Bottom Line for 5nm

If you have an iPhone 12, you’ve already seen 5nm processors, and the iPhone 13 family will as well. Snapdragon 780G and Snapdragon 888 are two 5nm processors from Qualcomm. The OnePlus 9 and other devices use the latter processor. The Samsung Exynos 2100, which is used in the Galaxy S21 family of phones, is also a 5nm processor. Intel 5nm processors are also on the way, but it will take some time.

While 5nm processors are already available in mobile devices and will soon be available in PCs, the term should be used to distinguish one manufacturing process from another within a company.