Abstract :
Integrated circuit technology has evolved rapidly over the past thirty years, but physical and economic limits are growing challenges. Optical lithography has been pushed beyond limits imagined 10–15 years ago, but should continue to scale for several more generations before X-ray or other approaches are necessary. Transistor delay has been reduced by at least 30% with every new generation and will continue to do so to below 0.1 μm channel lengths. Reducing power supply voltage along with scaling transistor feature size is necessary for both reliability and power considerations. Interconnects are now as important as transistors in determining the performance of logic circuits and will require more layers and new materials to maintain performance and density trends. The increase in technology complexity has brought with it a significant increase in cost, a trend that can not be continued. Cost is now as important a consideration as performance and density in developing integrated circuit technologies.
