Gordon E. Moore and His Legacy: Four Decades and Counting
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In partnership with Brinkmann Gordon E. Moore and His Legacy: Four Decades and Counting 0720-A102F © 2004, 2006 Brinkmann Instruments, Inc. by Krishnan Rajeshwar and Fred Roozeboom orty years is a long time but linear oscillator based on an integrated amazingly enough, innovations circuit (IC) containing a germanium F in mainstream silicon transistor, a resistor, and a capacitor), microelectronics have largely continued and Robert Noyce (inventor in 1959 of a to follow Gordon Moore’s prescient planar Si IC based on Hoerni’s diffusion predictions. The contributions of this process). Indeed, these halcyon days of Si remarkable individual, an ECS member microelectronics saw a bewildering series for 48 years and currently an emeritus of very important discoveries emanating member, have been well documented mainly from R&D groups in three in these magazine pages including a companies: Shockley Semiconductor, cover story for the spring 1997 issue Fairchild Semiconductor, and Intel. (see image at right). In May 2006, Gordon Moore had a pivotal role to play ECS announced the establishment in all these companies! of the Gordon E. Moore Medal for What is Moore’s law? What does Outstanding Achievement in Solid- it exactly predict? We can only very State Science and Technology. This briefly address these questions here was made possible by an endowment by returning to Moore’s original from Intel Corporation in honor of paper.1 When this paper first came its co-founder. “This award honors out in 1965, Si chips contained about Moore’s tremendous achievements in 60 distinct devices. By contrast, this field, which have had a strong and Intel’s Itanium chip crams 17 billion lasting influence on ECS, its members, transistors in a single chip. As recently and the work that they perform,” said as a decade ago, chips were built at Mark Allendorf, ECS President. “Intel’s which was subsequently published the 500 nm feature size level; current support enables ECS to continue to by Electronics magazine in an issue PC processors are fabricated at the 90 recognize the most accomplished celebrating the 35th anniversary of nm level. A 65 nm level chip has been individuals in a vital and active part electronics.1 This ground-breaking already demonstrated and both Intel Everything you want in one package. of the Society.” Justin R. Rattner, chief paper was entitled, “Cramming More and IBM very recently announced a technology officer of Intel, said, “It Components into Integrated Circuits,” 45 nm chip.4 Chips at the 30 nm level, Eco Chemie electrochemical instruments is a privilege for Intel to endow this and a facsimile of it appears as Chapter 4 and smaller, are not far behind. A award of The Electrochemical Society, in a recent book on the historical aspects logarithmic trend can be immediately home to the scientific disciplines at and implications of Moore’s “law”.2 It is discerned and this exponential scaling Eco Chemie Autolab Potentiostat/Galvanostat � Expansion module options include: Impedance the core of the modern semiconductor worth noting that Moore’s observation of chip component density with time industry. … we honor not only our on the underpinning trends in the Si is one of the underlying tenets of Systems accommodate a wide selection of Spectroscopy, Bipotentiostat, Electrochemical Noise, founder, but also the link between microelectronics industry was called a Moore’s law. However, the periodicity -15 electrochemical analyses, and they are ideal Low Currents to femtoamps (10 A), Analog Scan and fundamental science and innovation, “law” only later by another very large or “Moore’s clock cycle”3 has been for applications such as fuel cells, batteries, High-speed Scan which is at the core of both Intel and scale integration (VLSI) pioneer, Carver the subject of debate. Moore’s earlier biosensors, plating, coatings and corrosion. � New USB interface for easy installation and control ECS.” Winners of the predecessor to Mead, who holds the Gordon and Betty prediction of a doubling every year � Easy-to-use, Windows®-based software with simple data this prestigious award have included Moore endowed professorship (emeritus) of chip component density was later solid-state and semiconductor pioneers at Caltech. The reader is further referred updated by him in a 1975 paper,5 They offer high-resolution, PC-controlled solutions, handling, evaluation and transfer such as J. Woodall, B. Deal, A. Cho, and to an article3 by Dan Hutcheson in the which showed that the integration � and their integrated modular design means that you System multiplexing and project management capabilities N. Holonyak. The new winner of the Spring 2005 issue of Interface, “Silicon: growth of metal-oxide-semiconductor can create an individualized workstation capable of to help simplify complex analysis sequences medal will be announced in an award Into the Nano Era” for an eloquent (MOS) logic was slowing to a doubling growing with your lab. ceremony at the plenary session of the discussion of the role that Moore’s law every 18 months instead. On the For more information visit www.brinkmann.com ECS spring meeting in Chicago in May has played in driving the technological other hand, the average rate for 2007 (see page 23 of this issue). and economic growth of the Si microprocessor units (MPUs) and In this brief perspective of the re- microelectronics industry. Any discussion random access memories (DRAMs) named award, we can only offer brief of the history of Moore’s law also will not ran at a doubling every two years, as glimpses into the backdrop and links be complete without recognition of the illustrated in Fig. 1. (Reference 3 may between Gordon Moore, Intel, and key roles played by Douglas Engelbart be consulted for a further elaboration ECS that have led to the endowment. (a co-inventor of today’s personal of these trends.) It is quite conceivable Hark back to April 19, 1965, when computer (PC) mechanical mouse), Jean that Si transistors will continue to Gordon Moore mused about the future Hoerni (discoverer of the planar process shrink down to about the 4 nm level. of integrated electronics in an internal for manufacturing Si transistors), Jack This is estimated to occur around document for Fairchild Semiconductor, Kilby (who in 1958 demonstrated a 2023 (see Fig. 2). www.brinkmann.com email: [email protected] U.S.A. 800-645-3050 Canada 800-263-8715 The Electrochemical Society Interface • Spring 2007 11 0720-A102F-INT.indd 1 Full page journal ad Interface – INT 2/10/06 3:20:01 PM adhering to the Moore’s law trajectory will have the opposite trend. This has led to a “flattening of the Si Early IC'S MPU's DRAM's chip manufacturing world”11 as, increasingly, chip companies have started outsourcing manufacture (and even design) from the U.S., ) K ( Europe, and Japan to all corners of the s t globe. Thus as the microelectronics n e n community continues to innovate o p to keep Moore’s law alive, there is m o an ever-increasing awareness, more C R&D effort, and more business drivers to push the strategic research agenda of “More than Moore.”6-10 This third technology domain (Fig. 2) is based on or derived from Si technologies that do not scale with Moore’s law such as radio frequency, power/high voltage, and sensor/ actuator/microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). At an architectural Ye a r level, the system complexity can be addressed, at least partly, by the FIG. 1. The forces behind the law were still strongly in effect when Gordon Moore retired in 2001, system-on-a-chip (SoC) and system- leading him to quip that “Moore’s law had outlived Moore’s career.” (Reproduced from Ref. 3.). in-package (SiP) approaches. Because Where will we be four decades from This in turn requires new paradigms of their programmability, SoCs can now? At the 4 nm technology node, in materials (beyond Si), design, and be manufactured in large numbers the Si doomsayers have predicted that processing since the scaling rules for a range of applications, offering we will hit “Moore’s wall.”3 At this maximum reuse of costly design and for complementary MOS (CMOS) 12 juncture, the transistor source and circuits no longer apply. In Fig. 2, testing protocols. Whereas a SoC the drain, which are separated by the has the lowest cost per function, this technology domain is depicted 8-10 channel beneath the gate and the as “Beyond CMOS.”6-10 This domain NXP Semiconductors and others gate dielectric, will be close enough encompasses technologies based including IBM, Intel, Samsung, for the electrons to drift across on on carbon nanotubes, Si, or other Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Georgia their own, leading to device failure. Institute of Technology, and Fraunhofer semiconductor nanowire crossbars, 11 Furthermore, silicon dioxide will no molecular electronics, etc. Gesellschaft have shown that a SiP longer be able to function as the gate The cost of manufacturing IC chips focuses on achieving the highest value dielectric. Indeed beyond even the (“fab” costs) has steadily crept up for a single-packaged modular platform 32 nm and 22 nm technology nodes, over the years. Indeed, as the cost (to combining electrical as well as non- disruptive technologies and new the consumer) of computing power electrical platform components. The device architectures are anticipated. falls, the cost for manufacturers for three technology domains in Fig. 2, namely, More Moore, Beyond CMOS, and More than Moore, can be brought together into total system solutions by Moore’s Law & More deploying so-called “heterogeneous integration.”6 Unfortunately, roadmaps More than Moore: Diversification (for example, of the ITRS genre) are virtually non-existent in this space HV Sensors and the agendas of materials suppliers, Analog/RF Passives Biochips Power Actuators designers, and tool/device makers are not well aligned.