Transistor count

The transistor count is the number of transistors on an integrated circuit (IC). It typically refers to the number of MOSFETs (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors) on an IC chip, as all modern ICs use MOSFETs (also called MOS transistors). It is the most common measure of IC complexity (although the majority of transistors in modern microprocessors are contained in the cache memories, which consist mostly of the same memory cell circuits replicated many times). The rate at which MOS transistor counts have increased generally follows Moore's law, which observed that the transistor count doubles approximately every two years. As of 2017, the largest transistor count in a commercially available single-chip microprocessor is 19.2 billion, in AMD's Ryzen-based Epyc, which uses Samsung's 14 nm FinFET semiconductor manufacturing process. As of 2018, the highest in a graphics processing unit (GPU) is Nvidia's GV100 Volta with 21.1 billion transistors, and the highest in a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is Xilinx's Everest/Versal FPGA with around 50 billion transistors, both manufactured by TSMC with their 12 nm and 7 nm FinFET nodes, respectively. As of 2019, the highest transistor count in any IC chip is Samsung's eUFS (1 TB) embedded V-NAND flash memory chip, with 2 trillion transistors (4-bit per transistor). A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and provides results as output. A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display. The designer refers to the technology company that designs the logic of the integrated circuit chip (such as Nvidia and AMD). The manufacturer refers to the semiconductor company that fabricates the chip using its semiconductor manufacturing process at a foundry (such as TSMC and Samsung Semiconductor). The transistor count in a chip is dependent on a manufacturer's fabrication process, with smaller semiconductor nodes typically enabling higher transistor density and thus higher transistor counts. A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturing. Semiconductor memory is an electronic data storage device, often used as computer memory, implemented on integrated circuits. Nearly all semiconductor memory since the 1970s have used MOSFET (MOS) transistors, replacing earlier bipolar junction transistors. There are two major types of semiconductor memory, random-access memory (RAM) and non-volatile memory (NVM). In turn, there are two major RAM types, dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and static random-access memory (SRAM), as well as two major NVM types, flash memory and read-only memory (ROM). Typical CMOS SRAM consists of 6 transistors per cell. For DRAM, 1T1C, which means one transistor and one capacitor structure, is common. Capacitor charged or not is used to store 1 or 0. For flash memory, the data is stored in floating gate, and the resistance of the transistor is sensed to interpret the data stored. Depending on how fine scale the resistance could be separated, one transistor could store up to 3-bits, meaning eight distinctive level of resistance possible per transistor. However, the fine the scale comes with cost of repeatability therefore reliability. Typically, low grade 2-bits MLC flash is used for flash drives, so a 16 GB flash drive contains roughly 64 billion transistors.