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By Alan K Rudi
“Semiconductor technology lies at the heart of the amazing revolution we are witnessing in computing, communications, consumer electronics, transportation and health care. This revolution is enabled by designing and building successive generations of chips that perform an ever increasing number of functions, run faster, and cost less. In the course of this progress, the semiconductor industry entered the nanotechnology era in the year 2000, and by 2004, the industry was shipping devices with physical gate lengths less than 40 nanometer and insulator thickness less than 1 nanometer. This reinforces the industry’s position as a true nanotechnology pioneer, through continued technology advances at the pace of Moore’s Law. This progress will enable future functionality and applications that we perhaps cannot even imagine today.
To sustain this remarkable pace of technology progress, we must be able to keep pushing the technological limits of semiconductor design and manufacturing even further. To build tomorrow’s systems, we must learn to innovate swiftly with new design methodologies, devices and materials. This requires a large and coordinated effort in research and development among corporations, governments, and universities.” (Source: Semiconductor Industry Association 2007).
Click here to see the history of Moore’s Law
What is Intel’s next technology plan? “Intel has demonstrated its 32 nanometer logic process with a functional SRAM packing more than 1.9 billion second generation high-k metal gate transistors. It’s a monumental step towards delivering 32 nanometer microprocessors in 2009—and a great leap towards developing significant density, performance, and power improvements beyond today’s 45 nanometer technology. With this breakthrough in 32 nanometer SRAM logic technology, you can expect more in the future - faster processor speeds, greater computing capability, improved functionality, and more sophisticated applications.” Note: a decade ago, microprocessors were being built at a 500 nanometer scale.
Gordon Moore stated in 2006 “In terms of size of transistor you can see that we’re approaching the size of atoms which is a fundamental barrier, but it’ll be two or three generations before we get that far—but that’s as far out as we’ve ever been able to see. We have another 10 to 20 years before we reach a fundamental limit. By then they’ll be able to make bigger chips and have transistor budgets in the billions.”
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