“I’ve bet the whole company on 18A,” Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger told an interviewer earlier this year—a baffling statement to non-techies, but the story behind it is understandable to anyone, and worth knowing. It’s an uplifting reminder of human ingenuity’s endless reach, relevant to challenges of every kind.
As to what on earth Gelsinger was talking about: Intel is one of the world’s preeminent designers and manufacturers of computer chips, and the 18A is a chip that Intel intends to start making in volume next year. It will be the most advanced chip ever, though Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world’s largest chipmaker, will next year start making in volume a chip it claims at least matches the 18A. That designation, 18A, denotes the density of transistors on the chip, among other things, and the smaller the number, the higher the density. This is the smallest number of any chip yet; 18A means 18 angstroms, an angstrom being one ten-billionth of a meter. The rest of the industry labels chips by nanometers; TSMC’s new chip is 2 nm, and by that measure the 18A would be 1.8 nm. Even without understanding the production process, we stand in awe of its infinitesimal scale. Chipmakers now work at the level of atoms. An atom of silicon is 0.21 nanometers wide, for example.
