Plasma etching pushes the limits of a shrinking world

Plasma etching (using an ionized gas to carve tiny components on silicon wafers) has long enabled the perpetuation of Moore’s Law — the observation that the number of transistors that can be squeezed into an integrated circuit doubles about every two years. Without the compensating capabilities of plasma etching, Moore’s Law would have faltered around 1980 with transistor sizes at about 1 micron (the diameter of a human hair is approximately 40-50 microns wide). Today, etch compensation helps create devices that are smaller than 20 nanometers (1,000 times smaller than a micron).

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Plasma etching pushes the limits of a shrinking world