The state of the art · November 2026
How the world's most advanced chips are designed
From a line of Verilog to a 336-billion-transistor AI accelerator: the 2 nm transistors now in volume production, the lithography that prints them, the packaging that stitches dies and memory together, and the research in Nature and on arXiv that points to what comes next.
300 mm wafer · hover a die
2 nmTSMC N2 in high-volume manufacturing since Q4 2025, the first nanosheet (GAA) node at TSMC
336 Btransistors reported for NVIDIA's Rubin GPU, two reticle-sized compute dies
2,048bit-wide interface per HBM4 stack, double HBM3E, with a logic-process base die
5.5×reticle-size CoWoS interposers in production; 14× planned for 2028
Explore
Seventeen topics, one page each
Pick a topic, or use the menu on the left. Every page has its own interactive tools; the free 34-module course teaches the fundamentals step by step.
01 · How chips are madeSand to chip, step by stepFrom sand to a working chip, step by step02 · How chips are madeDesign flowFrom specification to silicon03 · How chips are madeProcess technologyThe transistor, rebuilt every few years04 · How chips are madeLithographyPrinting features smaller than a virus05 · How chips are madePackaging & HBMThe package is now part of the chip06 · How chips are madeChiplets & interconnectStandard plugs between dies07 · The chipsFlagship chipsThe most advanced chips shipping or announced08 · The chipsPhones & PCsThe same 3 nm, three different chips09 · The chipsGPU optimizationGetting the silicon's peak into real workloads10 · IndustryYield & costWhy big dies are expensive, and chiplets help11 · IndustryPower & coolingA rack now draws as much as a neighbourhood12 · IndustryGeopolitics & supplyBuilding leading chips without EUV13 · IndustryGlobal manufacturingWho actually makes the chips14 · IndustryOpen hardwareDesigning a chip without a licence fee15 · FrontierResearch frontierWhat the newest papers say16 · ReferenceGlossaryTerms used on this site17 · ReferenceSourcesWhere the numbers come from