Lithography in processors

I was comparing the i-7 2670 2nd gen with the i-7 3610 3rd gen and noticed the lithography in the i-7 2670 was at 32 nm while the 3rd gen was at 22nm.

Would someone be so kind to try to explain what lithography does and if it's better to have 32nm or 22nm?

 

In simple terms it's usually the gate length, how far the electrons have to move to conduct to the other side of the transistor and again basically the shorter that distance the faster the transistor can switch and the less power it will use doing so.

Lithography (amongst other processes) is the technique used to actually create the chip.

The smaller the better.

But you can pretty much always add detail to the answer and it would be always a simplification of the real process. For instance moving to 22nm intel are using a new transistor design, it's not simply smaller.

 

thanks, at least I'm not completely in the dark anymore.