Behind the Closed Doors of AMD's Chip Production

I am not a big fan of Tom's Hardware, but they have an excellent feature on AMD's chipmaking procedure in Fab 30, Dresden, one of the most advance fab facility in the World. Well probably until Fab 36 opens.

A single Athlon 64 chip is a little less than one third of a square inch (two square centimeters) in size; the tiniest structures are a mere 130 nm thick. The chipmaker is now switching over to 90nm production, which will almost halve the surface of each individual chip. The benefits are obvious: smaller components mean that more of them can be packed into a small space. Circuits are shortened and thus eat up less power and the transistors can work faster.