What Are Nm's

[JaymanHD]

I've seen that IBM has released a prototype of a 7 nm chip. Can someone explain what are nm's?

 

[fkr]

nanometer.

it part of the metric system of measurement.

one billionth of a meter

 

[geofelt]

nm is nanometer, the size of the basic parts of a chip.

 

[Gam3r01]

Nanometers. That is the distance between two transistors in the processor die itself.
The smaller the gap, the more transistors that can be fit into a single die, or the smaller a given die can be made.

 

[JaymanHD]

nm is nanometer, the size of the basic parts of a chip.

So i'm guessing smaller is better?

 

[etk]

nm is nanometer, the size of the basic parts of a chip.

So i'm guessing smaller is better?

Yea, but since it's not an actual measurement of anything anymore it's more of a marketing term than anything else; there are also a number of other things that have to be taken into account. Also, this isn't a silicon chip, and we don't know how complex of structures they built, so it's really questionable to try and compare this apples to apples with the cpu in your computer.