The term
die shrink (sometimes
optical shrink or
process shrink) refers to a simple semiconductor scaling of
semiconductor devices, mainly
transistors. The act of shrinking a
die is to create a somewhat identical circuitry using a more advanced
fabrication process, usually involving an advance of
lithographic node. This reduces overall costs of a chip company, as the absence of major architectural changes to the processor lowers research and development costs, while at the same time allowing more processor dies to be manufactured on the same piece of
silicon wafer, resulting in less cost per product sold.