Upholding Moore's Law
Mass High Tech: The Journal of New England Technology - June 4, 2004
by Jeff Miller

Many in the semiconductor industry fear that by 2008, the ongoing drive to increase processor speed through miniaturization will run up against a red brick wall.

The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) is an industrywide project that plots out the physical specifications necessary in the future to continue chip development according to Moore's Law.

Coined in 1965 by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, Moore's Law states that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits will double every year. That progression, however, has since steadily been revised to a doubling of transistors about every 18 months.

After 2008, the ITRS calls for specs for which there are no known technological solutions. This is what the industry refers to as, "the red brick wall."

"It's a healthy argument within the field as to whether the laws of physics will support that scale," said Martin Schmidt, professor of electrical engineering at MIT and director of the MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories.

Certainly, this is not the first time that engineers have feared that microchip advancement would be halted by the laws of physics. In the past, though, unforeseen technological breakthroughs allowed Moore's Law to stand.

This time around, however, there may be an accompanying "green brick wall," an economic barrier that could also impede development.

The cost of new semiconductor fabrication equipment such as stepper and phase masks are rising exponentially, said Jamie Goldstein, a general partner with North Bridge Venture Partners, at the Deshpande Center IdeaStream Symposium in April.

The upshot, Goldstein said, is that one day soon, only high-margin or huge-volume microchips will be economically feasible to produce. Innovative chips that may have a small initial market opportunity will be less likely to enter the forge.

With these barriers in mind, entrepreneurs and academics are considering what might lie beyond Moore's Law.

Vladimir Bulovic, an MIT assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science in the university's Laboratory for Organic Optics and Electronics, suggested that one path for semiconductors might not be smaller and faster, but rather larger and slower.

"It will be very hard to beat silicon in the speed game," Bulovic said.

These semiconductors could perhaps be fabricated using quantum dot technologies to facilitate fast, precise, undirected growth. Applications could include large flexible displays that could be rolled up like a paper poster.

"It's not so much an issue of what's beyond Moore's Law but whether there's a fork in the road in the market," Schmidt said. "Maybe there's a whole set of apps where different technologies would be more suitable."

About AmberWave Systems
Founded in 1998, AmberWave Systems has become a leader in the research, development and licensing of advanced technologies for semiconductor manufacturing. By funding and guiding university research, AmberWave Systems is bringing new technology developments to fruition through patents and technology licensing. In conjunction with its university research projects, AmberWave Systems conducts its own research, development and limited manufacturing in its semiconductor fabrication facility in Salem, New Hampshire. In addition, AmberWave Systems collaborates with other technology focused companies to further expand and develop its research. For more information about the company, please visit its Web site at www.amberwave.com.