SIA makes public technology roadmap
EE Times staff -- EDN, February 8, 2012
SAN FRANCISCO—The SIA (Semiconductor Industry Association) has made public its 2011 ITRS (International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors), first presented in Incheon, Korea on December 14, 2011. Sponsored by Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the United States, the report is overseen by the SIA, the voice of America's semiconductor manufacturing industry.
Dealing with both near and long-term challenges as well as potential innovations, the roadmap lays out what it sees as the path for semiconductor design and manufacturing through 2026.
The aim in looking so far ahead, said the SIA, is to anticipate technical challenges well in advance, giving the industry and research community time to dedicate resources to overcoming them.
One of those key challenges, said SIA president Brian Toohey, was keeping pace with Moore's Law, and how to continue decreasing the size of semiconductors while increasing performance standards to meet consumer demands.
Source: ITRS 2011 edition
Meanwhile, other key advancements pertaining to memory, flash, and MEMS and sensors were also discussed at length, as were opportunities in 3-D chip stacking.
The ITRS singled out DRAM development as particularly fast accelerating, noting it would allow for the faster introduction of technologies like higher-performance servers and sophisticated graphics for game consoles.
Flash memory was also given special mention for the role it plays as memory in mobile devices like digital cameras, tablets, and cell phones. Flash is expected to see accelerated development over the next couple of years and the introduction of 3-D in 2016 will allow for greater memory capabilities for a range of consumer devices, said the SIA.
In addition, innovative interconnects, switches, devices, and materials to advance nanotechnology were discussed at length in the ITRS, along with RF and Analog Mixed-signal based technologies.
This story was originally posted by EE Times.
