1 μm process

The 1 μm process (1 micrometer process) is a level of MOSFET semiconductor process technology that was commercialized around the 1984–1986 timeframe, by companies like NTT, NEC, Intel and IBM. It was the first process where CMOS was common (as opposed to NMOS).

The 1 μm process refers to the minimum size that could be reliably produced. The smallest transistors and other circuit elements on a chip made with this process were around 1 micrometers wide.

The earliest MOSFET with a 1 μm NMOS channel length was fabricated by a research team led by Robert H. Dennard, Hwa-Nien Yu and F.H. Gaensslen at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in 1974.

Semiconductor device fabrication

MOSFET scaling (process nodes)
20 μm – 1968 10 μm – 1971 6 μm – 1974 3 μm – 1977 1.5 μm – 1981 1 μm – 1984 800 nm – 1987 600 nm – 1990 350 nm – 1993 250 nm – 1996 180 nm – 1999 130 nm – 2001 90 nm – 2003 65 nm – 2005 45 nm – 2007 32 nm – 2009 28 nm – 2010 22 nm – 2012 14 nm – 2014 10 nm – 2016 7 nm – 2018 5 nm – 2020 3 nm – 2022
Future 2 nm ~ 2025 1 nm ~ 2027
Half-nodes Density CMOS Device (multi-gate) Moore's law Transistor count Semiconductor Industry Nanoelectronics