25 July 2006
Law breakers
Electronics researchers continue their fight against the Laws of Physics. By Graham Pitcher.
Research and development is fundamental to any industry. But electronics can be singled out for one good reason: much of the R&D work is taking the Laws of Physics on squarely.
Moore’s Law set the industry on this course some 40 years ago, when Gordon Moore predicted the number of transistors on a chip would double every 12 months. Ever since, the next process technology node has been approximately 0.7 (1/v2) of the existing one, because Moore’s Law is area based.
So 90nm production is being superseded by 65nm and so on. All very well, but these dimensions are substantially smaller than the wavelength of the light used to create them. Currently, manufacturers are coping with the problem, but not for much longer.
This means there has been a lot of work in developing lithographic technologies. So it’s no surprise that breakthroughs have been made – and strategies changed.
Author
Graham Pitcher
Supporting Information
Downloads
6539\Law-breakers.pdf
Websites
http://www.altera.com
http://www.arm.com
http://www.cadence.com
http://www.chipx.com
http://www.mentor.com
http://www.national.com
http://www.tsmc.com
http://www.xilinx.com
Companies
Altera UK Ltd
ARM Ltd
Cadence Design Systems Ltd
ChipX
Mentor Graphics (UK) Ltd
National Semiconductor UK Ltd
TSMC
Xilinx Ltd
This material is protected by Findlay Media copyright
See Terms
and Conditions.
One-off usage is permitted but bulk copying is not.
For multiple copies contact the
sales team.