32 nm process
The 32 nm node is the step following the 45 nm process in CMOS (MOSFET) semiconductor device fabrication. "32-nanometre" refers to the average half-pitch (i.e., half the distance between identical features) of a memory cell at this technology level. Toshiba produced commercial 32 GiB NAND flash memory chips with the 32 nm process in 2009. Intel and AMD produced commercial microchips using the 32-nanometre process in the early 2010s. IBM and the Common Platform also developed a 32 nm high-κ metal gate process. Intel began selling its first 32 nm processors using the Westmere architecture on 7 January 2010.
Semiconductor device fabrication |
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MOSFET scaling (process nodes) |
Future
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Since at least 1997, "process nodes" have been named purely on a marketing basis, and have no relation to the dimensions on the integrated circuit; neither gate length, nor metal pitch, nor gate pitch on a "32nm" device is thirty-two nanometers.
The 28-nanometre node was an intermediate half-node die shrink based on the 32-nanometre process.
The 32 nm process was superseded by commercial 22 nm technology in 2012.