Transistor counts double every two years but cutting-edge chip fabs now cost over $100 billion to build, limiting the number of companies that can afford them.
Names like '2 nm' or '20 Å' are marketing labels and not actual measurements of transistor size anymore.
Extreme ultraviolet lithography reaches its limits due to the physics of light wavelength, costly equipment, and chemical limits of photoresists.
Transistor designs have progressed from flat planar to FinFET to GAAFET, each adding steps and complexity that raise defect risks and costs.
Dennard scaling ended around 2006, so further transistor shrinkage no longer kept power density constant, stagnating clock speeds.
Rising photomask prices and fab costs squeeze out small chip designers and concentrate production among a few giants.
Optimizations like backside power delivery and chiplets offer only one-time gains and cannot replace fundamental scaling limits.
Future progress may require radically simpler and cheaper manufacturing, defect-tolerant chip architectures, or reusing older chips longer.
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