Technology node (180nm, 130nm, 90nm, 65nm, 45nm, 32nm, 22nm, etc.) is defined as the lowest metal (metal 1) half-pitch (i.e. metal width or metal spacing) for the DRAM version of the process.
Gate length or channel length is usually much smaller than the process node dimension (for example, in 90nm technology, the gate length is about 70nm).