tag: Moore’s Law

What’s After 10nm?
By Mark LaPedus - 14 Nov, 2013 - Comments: 0

For some time, chipmakers have roughly doubled the transistor count at each node, while simultaneously cutting the cost by around 29%. IC scaling, in turn, enables faster and lower cost chips, which ultimately translates into cheaper electronic products with more functions. Consumers have grown accustomed to the benefits of Moore’s Law, but the question is for how much longer? Chips based ... » read more

Uncertainty Increases About What’s Next
By Ed Sperling - 24 Oct, 2013 - Comments: 0

Across the semiconductor industry, there is a lot of talk about what’s next. Lithography advances have stalled, NRE and mask costs are rising, and complexity is exploding. But unlike the 1 micron wall, which was supposed to be impenetrable, there is no single issue holding back progress. Instead, there are lots of them, most with pricey workarounds, but which together become more complicat... » read more

Trending Back To ASICs
By Ann Mutschler - 24 Oct, 2013 - Comments: 0

True to its cyclical nature, the semiconductor industry is swinging back toward ASICs from more diversified approaches such as FPGAs. This dynamic is evident at companies such as Apple. “At one point we thought Apple was being a contrarian,” said Drew Wingard, CTO at Sonics. “Everybody else on the systems side was shedding their silicon people. The easiest counterpoint to what Apple wa... » read more

Why does EUV matter?
By Brian Bailey - 01 Oct, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Brian Bailey The end of Moore’s Law has been predicted for almost as long as the law has existed. It normally comes down to some great technological barrier that cannot be breached, only to find that a solution is just around the corner and the concerns fade until the next barrier is identified. At DAC this year (2013), there were many predictions about why Moore’s Law will end in th... » read more

Risk Vs. Reward
By Ed Sperling - 19 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

One of the most persistent business myths is that deep pockets in challenging times always win in the end. While that has proven a successful model in many industries where the barrier to entry is enormous and rising, in the technology world the outcome isn’t always what you’d expect even with those same variables. In fact, the history of technology is littered with former business giant... » read more

Executive Briefing: Soitec CEO
By Mark LaPedus - 19 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down to discuss FD-SOI, solar and various technology trends with André-Jacques Auberton-Hervé, chairman and chief executive of Soitec, a supplier of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates, solar concentrators and other products. SMD: The digital process roadmap is moving in several directions. Some pure-play foundries will offer ... » read more

It’s A Materials World
By Mark LaPedus - 15 Aug, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus At a recent event, Intel’s fab materials guru described a nightmarish occurrence that nearly brought the chip giant to its knees. Tim Hendry, director of fab materials and vice president of the Technology and Manufacturing Group at Intel, said the company obtained a critical material from an undisclosed supplier. “This large sub-supplier, a very large chemical company, m... » read more

Experts At The Table: Who Pays For Low Power?
By Ed Sperling - 19 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling Low-Power/High-Performance Engineering sat down to discuss the cost of low power with Fadi Gebara, research staff member for IBM’s Austin Research Lab; David Pan, associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Texas; Aveek Sarkar, vice president of product engineering and support at Apache Design; and Tim Whitfield, director o... » read more

New Approaches To Better Performance And Lower Power
By Ed Sperling - 11 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling Until 90nm, every feature shrink and rev of Moore’s Law included a side benefit of better power and performance. After that, improvements involved everything from different back-end processes to copper interconnects and transistor structures. But from 20nm onward, the future will rest with a combination of new materials, new architectures and new packaging approaches—and som... » read more

Speeding Up NMOS
By Ed Sperling - 08 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling For years—decades, in fact—the NMOS transistor world has been on cruise control. NMOS is naturally faster and its performance has scaled better than PMOS. PMOS has had a cost advantage. But lately, it has been catching up in performance, too. In fact, at 20nm the two transistor types have proven nearly equal in performance—but not for long. NMOS is about to get a big bo... » read more

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