Impact of scaling and the scaling development environment

Dr. Robert Dennard´s 1974 paper looked rather simple at first and did not attract much attention at Toshiba. It wasn´t until CMOS acquired dominance in the mainstream of integrated circuit (IC) design that scaling theory became the physics-based guiding principle for Moore´s Law to continue. Without scaling theory, the author doubts that Moore´s Law could have survived for more than three decades. It was the first attempt to couple geometry shrink with other important factors such as power-delay products, on-chip interconnect performance and integration density.