10 µm process

The 10 μm process (10 micrometer process) is the level of MOSFET semiconductor process technology that was commercially reached around 1971,^[1][2] by companies such as RCA and Intel.

The 10 μm process refers to the minimum size that could be reliably produced: the half-pitch, which is the distance between two 1-metal lanes, center to center, and the gate length of a transistor; those two values used to be identical in early nodes. The smallest transistors and other circuit elements on a chip made with this process were around 10 micrometers wide.

Products featuring 10 μm manufacturing process

• RCA's CD4000 series of integrated circuits began with a 20 μm process in 1968, before gradually downscaling and eventually reaching 10 μm in the next several years.^[3]
• Intel 1103, an early dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chip launched in 1970, used an 8 μm process.^[4]
• Intel 4004 CPU launched in 1971 was manufactured using a 10 μm process.^[5]
• Intel 8008 CPU launched in 1972 was manufactured using this process.^[5]