In what feels like a fairly historic moment, Intel has effectively called an end to the long-running Moore’s Law. The Law itself dictates that transistor density on chips will double every 18 months to two years, effectively doubling the performance capabilities. Not so anymore according to Intel executive VP William Holt, who admitted as much during the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Time For New Rules
Trying to fit everything into a discussion about Moore’s Law is getting ridiculous.
http://semiengineering.com/time-for-new-rules/
Is Moore’s Law dead? Brigadier General Paul Fredenburgh, commandant of the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, asked that question to four industry CEOs last week while visiting Silicon Valley with some of his students. He received four highly nuanced, if not different, answers.
From one perspective or another, all of the CEOs were all correct. It’s taking longer to move from one process node to the next, but there is significantly more compute power being offered at each new node. While that isn’t technically a doubling of transistors every two years or so, performance continues to increase an average of 30% every couple of years, either through architectural changes, new materials or different packaging approaches.
Moreover, there is no end in sight to how long this will continue. 2.5D, fan-out wafer-level packaging and full 3D will radically improve performance and lower power.
What is becoming obvious, though, is that Moore’s Law as it was originally written is getting tougher to follow. There are several reasons for this:
1. Quality is becoming a bigger issue as semiconductors begin making inroads in safety-critical and industrial markets, including autonomous vehicles, robotics and personalized medicine.
2. Market demand for moving to the next process node will continue, but the number of high-volume markets is shrinking. Companies such as Samsung, Intel and Xilinx all need increased transistor density. But for other companies, density isn’t the only way to solve their power/performance/cost issues.
3. Despite the fact that EUV is moving forward after years of delays, the big challenge with advanced nodes is time. EUV will help. But that’s only one piece of the puzzle. It takes longer to design chips at advanced nodes
While Moore’s Law is continuing in one way, it also has ended in another. And while collectively this is referred to as Moore’s Law, it bears only glimmers of resemblance to the observation first penned by Gordon Moore.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Xilinx wrestles Moore’s Law limits with adaptability, Versal chip
https://www.fierceelectronics.com/electronics/xilinx-wrestles-moore-s-law-limits-adaptability-versal-chip
Tomi Engdahl says:
Moore’s Law Isn’t Slowing down — Just Ask System Companies
https://www.eetimes.com/moores-law-isnt-slowing-down-just-ask-system-companies/
Moore’s Law, the tenet that the number of transistors on a chip will double every 18-24 months, has driven the electronics industry for decades. Today, there’s no denying that Moore’s Law is showing its age, with some semiconductor industry leaders going so far as to rewrite its definition. In this era of More-than-Moore, chipmakers are turning to new materials, 3D wafer stacking and heterogeneous integration – die with different manufacturing process nodes and technologies integrated within a single package – to keep driving the pace of advancement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Triple-Deck CFET Structure With An Integrated SRAM Cell For The 2nm Technology Node And Beyond
How well does a triple-deck CFET structure stack up as a candidate for area scaling?
https://semiengineering.com/a-triple-deck-cfet-structure-with-an-integrated-sram-cell-for-the-2nm-technology-node-and-beyond/