Will We See Another Of The Best Smartphones Of The Decade?

ASML(Advanced lithography of semiconductor materials) Shipping has just started Equipment needed to make 1 nanometer chips. It got me thinking, where will this end? How small is it and is the smartphone industry about to hit a physical bottleneck? Turns out the answer is a little more complicated than just yes or no.

Is Moore’s Law relevant?

Moore’s Law – or Moore’s trend as some engineers and physicists like to call it – is an observation made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore. She stated that the number of transistors on a microchip will double every two years with a slight increase in cost. This is something that has mostly remained true for a very long time, giving us the annual power upgrades we expect from flagship smartphones. But as the size of chips decreased, so did the feasibility of manufacturing them. Return rates are getting worse and the cost factor is slowly starting to creep up. For example, Samsung Foundry recently began experiencing production rates as low as 10 percent, hindering its manufacturing plans. 1.4nm chips by 2027.

But Moore’s Law has been ignored by some since 2010 for another reason.

Modern chip measurements are just marketing

Image credit – PhoneArena

We’ve recently seen 3nm chips making their way into our flagship phones and have already heard about work starting with 2nm chips. But these measurements aren’t really accurate: they’re just a way to let the average person understand improvements in chip design. Until about 2010, these measurements were actually related to the size of the elements inside the transistor. Up to this point, we’ve also seen massive improvements in processor clock speeds, something that has slowed significantly since then.

As manufacturers began to push the physical limits of how small they could be, they began inventing newer ways to make chips. These new methodologies made nanometer measurements increasingly inaccurate as they progressed. Current measurements are now used more for marketing than any actual interpretations of size.

In short, your flagship phone doesn’t really run on a 3nm chipset. 3nm is what the company decides to call it, and it just refers to a newer model more than anything else.

The Uncertainty Principle may stop all progress

The laws of physics have had enough. | Image credit – Huawei

Then there is another problem: Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. The defining principle of everyone’s favorite buzzword: quantum computing. In the simplest terms, we will eventually reach a point where quantum uncertainty will make it impossible to manufacture anything viable. Quantum uncertainty is the quality of particles at atomic scales: making them unpredictable and difficult to measure.

1nm chips don’t have to be the end. Just a few years ago, people were wondering if we would be able to break through the 5nm barrier. Every time progress shows signs of slowing down, someone comes up with new ways to continue progress as happened around 2010.

So, although we may reach scales of 0.7nm or even lower in the future, unless we see another breakthrough, we will eventually see Moore’s Law come to an end. The uncertainty principle, although not the direct cause of the slowdown in progress, will ultimately place us before difficult limits. There is only a low level we can reach before electrons start behaving erratically and causing problems.

Will we see progress stop during the decade?

If there’s one thing I’ve always believed in, it’s human ingenuity. The indomitable human spirit is very difficult to break, especially when it comes to scientific progress. It would be easy to say that we’ll stop seeing improvements by the time we get 1nm phones, but I honestly don’t think that’s true. ASML will come up with something crazier or someone will invent a completely new way of making chips. Who knows, we might see radical sci-fi concepts come to life. Personally, I would love to see the sophons from the “three-body problem” become a reality.

In case you didn’t know, sonophones are “unfolded” protons that have circuits patterned on them before folding back to their original size. This concept requires that string theory be correct such that the higher dimensions of the proton can be revealed and then folded away to hide the circuits.

But in short, I don’t think 1nm chips will be the end of smartphone innovation. We may see progress slow significantly soon but there will still be progress. At least I hope so: I’m still waiting for the consumer version of Meta Orion sunglasses.

Will we see another of the best smartphones of the decade?

Is Moore’s Law relevant?

Modern chip measurements are just marketing

The Uncertainty Principle may stop all progress

Will we see progress stop during the decade?

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