Moore's Law - Major Enabling Factors and Future Trends

Major Enabling Factors and Future Trends

Numerous innovations by a large number of scientists and engineers have been significant factors in the sustenance of Moore’s law since the beginning of the integrated circuit (IC) era. Whereas a detailed list of such significant contributions would certainly be desirable, below just a few innovations are listed as examples of breakthroughs that have played a critical role in the advancement of integrated circuit technology by more than six orders of magnitude in less than five decades:

• The foremost contribution, which is the raison d’etre for Moore's law, is the invention of the integrated circuit itself, credited contemporaneously to Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce at Intel.
• The invention of the complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) process by Frank Wanlass in 1963. A number of advances in CMOS technology by many workers in the semiconductor field since the work of Wanlass have enabled the extremely dense and high-performance ICs that the industry makes today.
• The invention of the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) technology by Robert Dennard at I.B.M. in 1967. that made it possible to fabricate single-transistor memory cells. Numerous subsequent major advances in memory technology by leading researchers worldwide have contributed to the ubiquitous low-cost, high-capacity memory modules in diverse electronic products.
• The invention of deep UV excimer laser photolithography by Kanti Jain at I.B.M. in 1982, that has enabled the smallest features in ICs to shrink from 500 nanometers in 1990 to as low as 32 nanometers in 2011. With the phenomenal advances made in excimer laser photolithography tools by numerous researchers and companies, this trend is expected to continue into this decade for even denser chips, with minimum features reaching below 10 nanometers. From an even broader scientific perspective, since the invention of the laser in 1960, the development of excimer laser lithography has been highlighted as one of the major milestones in the 50-year history of the laser.

Computer industry technology "roadmaps" predict (as of 2001) that Moore's law will continue for several chip generations. Depending on and after the doubling time used in the calculations, this could mean up to a hundredfold increase in transistor count per chip within a decade. The semiconductor industry technology roadmap uses a three-year doubling time for microprocessors, leading to a tenfold increase in the next decade. Intel was reported in 2005 as stating that the downsizing of silicon chips with good economics can continue during the next decade, and in 2008 as predicting the trend through 2029.

Some of the new directions in research that may allow Moore's law to continue are:

• Researchers from IBM and Georgia Tech created a new speed record when they ran a silicon/germanium helium supercooled transistor at 500 gigahertz (GHz). The transistor operated above 500 GHz at 4.5 K (−451 °F/−268.65 °C) and simulations showed that it could likely run at 1 THz (1,000 GHz). However, this trial only tested a single transistor.

• As an example of the impact of deep-ultraviolet excimer laser photolithography, in continuing the advances in semiconductor chip fabrication, IBM researchers announced in early 2006 that they had developed a technique to print circuitry only 29.9 nm wide using 193 nm ArF excimer laser lithography. IBM claims that this technique may allow chip makers to use then-current methods for seven more years while continuing to achieve results forecast by Moore's law. New methods that can achieve smaller circuits are expected to be substantially more expensive.
• In April 2008, researchers at HP Labs announced the creation of a working memristor: a fourth basic passive circuit element whose existence had previously only been theorized. The memristor's unique properties allow for the creation of smaller and better-performing electronic devices.

• In February 2010, Researchers at the Tyndall National Institute in Cork, Ireland announced a breakthrough in transistors with the design and fabrication of the world's first junctionless transistor. The research led by Professor Jean-Pierre Colinge was published in Nature Nanotechnology and describes a control gate around a silicon nanowire that can tighten around the wire to the point of closing down the passage of electrons without the use of junctions or doping. The researchers claim that the new junctionless transistors can be produced at 10-nanometer scale using existing fabrication techniques.

• In April 2011, a research team at the University of Pittsburgh announced the development of a single-electron transistor 1.5 nanometers in diameter made out of oxide based materials. According to the researchers, three "wires" converge on a central "island" which can house one or two electrons. Electrons tunnel from one wire to another through the island. Conditions on the third wire results in distinct conductive properties including the ability of the transistor to act as a solid state memory.

• In February 2012, a research team at the University of New South Wales announced the development of the first working transistor consisting of a single atom placed precisely in a silicon crystal (not just picked from a large sample of random transistors). Moore's Law expected for this milestone to be reached, in lab, by 2020.