We have a guest contribution today from Brian Cronquist, MonolithIC 3D Inc.’s VP of Technology & IP. Brian discusses about MonolithIC 3D Inc.’s participation at Semicon West 2013.
Thanks to everybody who came by the Silicon Innovation Forum poster session at SEMICON West 2013. We really enjoyed talking with you about all the exciting possibilities for new products and processes that are enabled by monolithic 3D IC.
Here is Zvi ‘guarding’ the poster:
Atoms Don’t Scale
Dennard-type scaling is already reaching diminishing returns and looks like its going to ‘hit the wall’ near this decade’s end. P. Farrar of IBM said it succinctly: “Atoms Don’t Scale.” and Steve Punta of Intel said “It’s hard to imagine good devices smaller than 10 lattices across will be reached in 2020”:
Additionally, Bob Cowell of Intel microprocessor fame, who is currently the head of DARPA’s MTO (Microelectronic Technology Office); the folks who are supposed to be looking way ahead, is publicly saying that Moore’s Law is at its end and we will have (at least) a decade long gap (2020-2030) in device improvements:
We all know the trends: much higher lithography costs and litho-driven defects; interconnect resistance and capacitance slowing performance, connectivity is driving power budgets awry, and so on. And the result is that the historical cost trends that we have been enjoying are will soon no longer be there. Will carbon nano-tubes, graphene, nanowires, InGaAs, spintronics, etc, save us? Not likely, and certainly not by 2020.
What’s the Answer?
Monolithic 3D can utilize the existing infrastructure, so the usual 5-10 years of development of evolutionary concepts places this solution as being capable for answering the 2020 call. TSVs (parallel 3D), if the costs can be contained, can only address a very small part of the solution space.Take a look at the monolithic 3D techniques and potential for more than Moore ever predicted.
As an industry, how are we going to fill the decade gap?
Give me a call or email if you want to talk more…
BC
