What is a process node in chip manufacturing?

How it works

Chipmakers upgrade their factories in generations. Each generation gets a label such as 7nm, 5nm or 3nm. As IEEE Spectrum explained in 2020, node numbers in the 1970s and 1980s matched two roughly equal dimensions. They were the transistor's gate length and the metal half-pitch, which is half the repeat spacing of the chip's metal wires. Shrinking those features by about 30 percent per generation doubled the number of transistors that fit in a given area.

The two measurements began to diverge in the mid-1990s. Spectrum notes that transistors made on the 130nm node had 70nm gates. Intel's 22nm transistors of 2011 had 26nm gates, it notes. Today a node name identifies a generation, not a dimension. The 2023 update of the IEEE's International Roadmap for Devices and Systems says manufacturers have not reached a consensus on node naming. It describes technologies by the spacing of transistor gates and metal wires instead. It projects that the physical channel length of transistors will level off at about 12 nanometers.

Why it matters

The roadmap sets targets for node scaling every two to three years:

• more than 10% higher operating frequency
• more than 20% less energy per switching operation
• more than 30% less chip area

Node names also carry legal weight. As of October 2026, the U.S. Export Administration Regulations define "advanced-node" logic chips. Chips qualify if they use a non-planar transistor design or a production technology node of 16/14 nanometers or less. The rules point to the 2016 edition of the same roadmap to determine the node.

Where things stand in 2026

As of October 2026, the newest processes carry a different name at each company. TSMC says its N2 process, which uses its first generation of nanosheet transistors, entered volume production in the fourth quarter of 2025. It says a follow-up, N2P, is scheduled for volume production in the second half of 2026. Intel says its 18A process is in high-volume production in the United States. Intel says 18A pairs gate-all-around transistors, in which the gate fully surrounds the channel, with power delivery moved to the back of the chip. Samsung describes its Exynos 2600 mobile processor as based on a 2nm gate-all-around process.

These are the companies' own descriptions. Because there is no shared naming convention, node names from different companies are not directly comparable measurements.