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Comment by Nokinside | Hacker News Reader

7mm is so called 'commercial name' nothing physical.

Million transistors per square millimeter (MTr/mm²) is better comparison metric than the commercial name for the process. Here is handy chart I copied from https://www.techcenturion.com/7nm-10nm-14nm-fabrication:

    Tech Node name  (MTr/mm²)

    Intel 7nm       (2??) 
    TSMC 5nm EUV    171.3
    TSMC 7nm+ EUV   115.8
    Intel 10nm      100.8
    TSMC 7nm Mobile 96.5
    Samsung 7nm EUV 95.3
    TSMC 7nm HPC    66.7
    Samsung 8nm     61.2
    TSMC 10nm       60.3
    Samsung 10nm    51.8
    Intel 14nm      43.5
    GF 12nm         36.7
    TSMC 12nm       33.8
    Samsung/GF 14nm 32.5
    TSMC 16nm       28.2

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It's worth pointing out that the value for Intel's 10nm is on its high-density libraries, not its high-performance libraries, which are less dense.

"Libraries"?

There's a lot of detail in a really in-depth (but very interesting) AnandTech article about Intel's 10nm process [0]. The basic idea is Intel have multiple distinct sets of logical unit designs at different densities which have different characteristics. It's like having multiple software libraries that do the same thing but have different performance etc. except it's a library of silicon building blocks. You trade-off speed with density (highest performance library uses the least dense circuits). Each chip's design can be made up of bits of silicon from these different libraries. Different densities also have different power consumption, so in cases it makes sense to build low power chips that have small high performance, power sucking parts that can be used sparingly.

[0]: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13405/intel-10nm-cannon-lake-...

Libraries of standard cells.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_cell

Are there any current products one can buy, regardless of expense, using Intel's 10nm?

I know there was one product, the Core i3-8121U, a very middling performance chip which saw an extremely limited release.

But it was discontinued.

10nm Ice Lake laptop chips are currently shipping in systems from Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.

Well shiver me timbers, they've been out for weeks!

That processor solely exists as PR stunt to satisfy investors. It has a faulty GPU, lower clock speed, higher temp, and should be considered as a lab sample instead. You can take a look at Charlie's article about it[1]

[1]:https://semiaccurate.com/2018/05/29/is-intels-upcoming-10nm-...

AnandTech deep dive and review on the chip: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13405/intel-10nm-cannon-lake-...

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