Moore’s Law and Its Future

1. Moore’s Law and Its Future Mark Clements

2. This Week – Moore’s Law • History of Transistors and circuits • The Integrated circuit manufacturing process • Moore’ Law is announced • Benefits of ICs • Extrapolating Moore’s Law to its conclusion • Technological advances • Moore’s Law version 2? EADS

3. Discrete Transistors and Circuits • The transistor succeeded the valve in the late 1940s • Electronic engineers began to design complex circuits using discrete components – transistors, resistors, capacitors • Performance and other problems were noticed due to the number of separate components • Circuits were unreliable and heavy • High power consumption – long time to assemble • Expensive to produce EADS

4. The Solution – Integrated Circuits • Build entire circuit on a wafer of silicon • Use masking and spraying techniques in manufacture • Pure silicon wafers made from large crystals of silicon • Areas of silicon doped with suitable elements e.g. Be • Conductive tracks made from aluminium • Use this technique to produce other components e.g. capacitors and resistors on the same wafer EADS

5. Problems solved • Inter-device distances reduced – faster circuits • Lightweight circuits – suitable for space travel • Cheaper assembly cost – after recovery of R&D costs • Identical circuit properties – better matching • Less power required – less heat dissipated • Smaller circuits – smaller devices could be built EADS

6. Gordon Moore - Observations • Gordon Moore worked for Fairchild Semiconductors • He noticed a trend in IC manufacture • Every 2 years the number of components on an area of silicon doubled* • He published this work in 1965 – known as Moore’s Law • His predictions were for 10 years into the future • His work predicted personal computers and fast telecommunication networks • * Sources vary regarding time period EADS

7. Graph of Moore’s Law EADS

8. IC Technologies Small Scale Integration (SSI) combined around 10 discrete components onto 5mm square of silicon substrate. SSI led to Medium Scale Integration (MSI), then Large Scale Integration (LSI) with many thousands of components in the same area of silicon. Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) provided the means to implement around 1 million components per chip. Current technology produces silicon wafers with around 50 million components per chip. The Pentium 4 has around 55 million components on the wafer (2003). EADS

9. IC Technology EADS

10. Why does the law exist? • Some of the factors that contribute to Moore’s Law: • Manufacturers wishing to keep up with the law • Competition between manufacturers • Successive technologies providing better design tools • Customer demand for better products • Man’s constant struggle to advance knowledge • There may be other factors too EADS

11. The Next Step Intel have announced that they have the technology to produce microprocessors containing more than 400 million transistors, running at 10 gigahertz and operating at less than one volt, in the next five to ten years. This is in line with Moore’s law EADS

12. Shrinking the Size of a Component • How small can a component become? • What limits the size of a device? • What do we make the devices from? • Do quantum effects have an influence here? • If there is a limit, what happens to Moore’s Law? EADS

13. The Current Limitations • Circuits cannot be reduced beyond atomic size • Quantum effects reduce the reliability as size decreases • Lithographic techniques become more complex as the size of components becomes smaller than the wavelength of light • Speed of electrical signals is finite • This suggests that Moore’s Law will finally end EADS

14. Lateral Thinking • To improve the performance of devices, new technologies are in development: • Quantum storage (quantum data registers - a faster, more efficient way to store and retrieve data than the binary system we use today) • Light operated transistors • Electro-optical polymers and more are showing new techniques for achieving the ever higher performance demanded by industry and consumers EADS

15. The Future of ICs • Moore acknowledged that his "law" won't hold forever. He asserted that the right technological approaches can delay "forever", extending the longevity of his original prediction. • Intel are working on new ideas such as SiGe and strained silicon to delay the end of Moore’s Law • Designing transistors that switch at speeds around THz (can switch on and off a trillion times per second) • The advances continue! EADS

16. The End of the Line? • It is obvious that technology will improve • We may meet the lower size limit of a transistor • Therefore the abilities of the transistor itself will have to improve instead • Faster switching, lower power designs etc. • ICs still improve EADS

17. Moore’s Law version 2? • After his law is no longer valid – what can we use to measure trends? • Component density? • No – it would be fairly constant • Performance? • Yes – but which metric? • Switching rate? • Individual or bulk? • Rise time? • Access time or read/ write time • Other measurable attributes EADS

18. Moore version 2’s metric(s) • Technological advances will continue as long as there is demand for digital devices • It is immaterial whether the component density limit is reached • Another metric will have to be chosen to allow the IC evolution to be mapped and to allow valid predictions to be made • Which metric – this is extremely complex to choose EADS

19. Conclusion • Moore’s law will eventually reach its inevitable conclusion • Technology will continue to advance • ICs with improved properties will be manufactured • Another metric will need to be chosen to allow the future trends to be mapped and predicted • The complexity of current IC design means this choice will be difficult EADS

20. References http://www.intel.com/labs/features/mi03031.htm#extend http://www.intel.com/netcomms/technologies/manuf.htm?iid=techtrends+tech_manuf_expertise& http://www.intel.com/research/silicon/mooreslaw.htm http://www.intel.com/labs/features/mi03031.htm EADS