In most PDKs you can see parameter called multiplicity (m) as one of the parameters for MOS device. This one means that total W is divided m times which would be a w for 1 finger.
The reasonse for the finger layout are space and decreasing of parasitic S/D capacitances by sharing the S/D areas.
The layout could look like : S|G|D|G|S|G|D|G|S
In this case your total W = 4xfingerW. You can see and calculate that AD/AS and PD/PS are way smaller and that by reducing this parasitic capacitance you can get faster switching (it is easy to simulate it with string of inverters).