Nigel Tufnel, chief scientist at TSMC, explains the merits of the latest hardware from ASML:

"This is a fab, but it's very special because if you can see, the numbers all go down to 2nm. Look, right across the board. 2nm, 2nm, 2nm, 2nm ..."

"And most of the fabs go down to 3."

"Exactly."

"Does that mean it's ... smaller? Is it any smaller?"

"Well, it's one smaller, isn't it? It's not 3. You see, most fabs are going to be running at 3. You're on 3 on your fab -- where can you go from there? Where?"

"I dunno."

"Nowhere, exactly. And what we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?"

"Put it down to 2."

"2. Exactly. One smaller."