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.
Semiconductor device fabrication |
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MOSFET scaling (process nodes) |
Future
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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 nm" 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.
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 nm" node is an intermediate half-node die shrink based on the "32 nm" process.
The "32 nm" process was superseded by commercial "22 nm" technology in 2012.