New engineering challenges are making it difficult for chipmakers to keep up with Moore’s Law, the prediction that the density of transistors in processors will double every two years. But Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is pressing ahead nonetheless.

The company, which not only sells consumer electronics but is also among the world’s largest semiconductor makers, announced on Monday night that it has shrunk the size of its transistors to five nanometers. That’s down from seven nanometers in the processor that powers the Galaxy S10.

Reducing the size of transistors allows for more of them to be packed onto a chip, which increases performance. And smaller transistors also require less electricity to run. In the case of Samsung’s five-nanometer chips, they will provide either 10 percent more processing speed or 20 percent lower power consumption than their seven-nanometer predecessors depending on the configuration.

Samsung is producing both chip generations using an emerging fabrication method dubbed extreme ultraviolet lithography. As the name suggests, the technique involves using rays of extreme ultraviolet light to etch circuit patterns into the silicon sheets from which processors are made. These beams have a considerably shorter wavelength than the light normally used in chip production, which allows fabrication machines to create smaller transistors.

Samsung expects to start mass producing five-nanometer chips in the second half of 2020. The development comes less than two weeks after TSMC Co. Ltd., another major semiconductor maker, announced that it has begun making five-nanometer processors as well. Intel Corp., meanwhile, reportedly isn’t expected to start using extreme ultraviolet lithography until 2021.

Photo: Samsung