Nanometer

What Does Nanometer Mean?

A nanometer (NM) is a unit of measurement that is equivalent to one billionth of a meter. It is widely used as a scale for building tiny, complex, and atomic scale computing and electronic components – specifically in nanotechnology.

Techopedia Explains Nanometer

Nanometers are used to measure the smallest things, usually those the size of an atom or molecule. This term is used in the context of miniature computing devices, such as integrated circuits (IC) and transistors embedded within a processor. Typically, the size of transistors on a semiconductor-based processor is calculated in nanometers. Each microchip can have transistors that are 100 nanometers wide and can accommodate more than 1 billion transistors within a single microchip die.

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Margaret Rouse

Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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