1996 Electronics Industry Environmental Roadmap - Civil and ...

6.0 Emerging Technologies
Emerging Technologies
6.1 The Changing Nature of Electronic Components
The defining trend in electronics over the last several decades has been the unceasing emphasis
on “smaller, faster, cheaper, and quicker.” “Moore’s Law,” which states that integrated circuit
performance doubles every 18 months has held remarkably true over the last several years, and
trends seem to support its continued validity in the near future.
The challenge of effective environmental management in the electronics industry is complicated
by this rapid pace of change. Many systems or processes now in common use have only been developed
in the last few years (or even months) and new materials, devices, and applications are
reported weekly. This constant change complicates thorough characterization of what truly
represents “state-of-the-art” and challenges processes, suppliers, and materials to keep up with
rapid evolution.
Consider a few metrics that reflect the trends in advanced electronic systems [31]: 16
As a result of concerted industry efforts, 0.35-µm line widths for ICs are becoming standard
in the industry. The SIA roadmap anticipates an evolution to 0.18 µm by 2001 and
to 0.07 µm by 2010.
Shrinking line widths are accompanied by increasing chip size, driven by requirements
for increased performance and functionality. DRAMs are expected to grow from 190
µm2 to 1400 µm2, microprocessors from 250 µm2 to 620 µm2, application-specific ICs
(ASICs) from 450 µm2 to 1400 µm2.
The result of this increased size and capability will be tremendous performance improvements
from today’s 64M DRAMs to 64G DRAMs by 2010.
The number of transistors per chip for microprocessors will likely increase from today’s
four million to as many as ninety million by 2010. For ASICs, the number of transistors
will increase from two million to forty million.
Along with this growing complexity, the number of chip input/outputs will grow from
900 at the 0.35-µm level in 1995 to 4800 at the 0.07-µm level by the year 2010.
Processing speeds for high-performance systems will likely increase from 150 MHz today
to over 600 MHz by the year 2010.
Much of this improvement has occurred, and will continue to occur, within the context of
technologies and materials already in use today (i.e., cell size reductions and architectural
advances) ([31], p. 16). The SIA roadmap predicts that Moore’s law will likely hold true through
2010, and that CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology will continue to
be the dominant high-volume, high-performance technology throughout the foreseeable future
([31], p. 11). Beyond this, however, new processes, materials and approaches—for example,
16 The projections in this list are drawn primarily from The National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors,
published by the Semiconductor Industry Association, 4300 Stevens Creek Blvd., Suite 271, San Jose, California,
408-246-2830. Throughout this chapter, this document is referred to as the SIA Roadmap.
89