Introduction
Microelectronics is one of
the fundamental enabling technologies driving the development
of the Information Society, but what are the problems resulting
from physical, technological and economical limits?
The main issues are how to
address complexity, how to address design re-usability, modular
verification and testing, skilled resources and a vision of tomorrows
applications and the need to improve design in order to be more
profitable.
Markets
Technology inflections are
creating markets. Early bipolar transistors enabled the mainframe
computer business. In the 1980s microprocessors and DRAM memories
enabled the PC business. The current technology is system on
a chip. This is about putting everything on one chip and this
will lead to new markets - for such things as mobile and handheld
devices, set-top boxes, digital TV, and so on.
In the PC era the key issue
was how to increase the performance of silicon in terms of speed
and number of transistors on an integrated circuit. Now the challenge
is to decrease the total cost system. The old PC era was about
a final end markets of around 100 million units, but the new
system on a chip era is about serving markets characterised by
billions of units. These large numbers are accounted for by the
replacement of existing analogue devices (such as TVs) as well
as the introduction of new devices, for example e-books.
The semiconductor industry
now drives the wealth of nations. Europe is strong in certain
areas, which are relevant to the new era (digital TV, mobile
phones). The latest figures suggest that the European semiconductor
business is positioned for growth in many areas - telecommunications,
automotive, consumer as well as industrial - and many firms are
already leaders in these areas.
Technical
and Human Resource Challenges
The future technical challenges
over the next 20 years lies in the area of cost. Traditional
cost reduction has focused on the shrinkage of the size of the
transistor and increasing the number of chips per wafer. There
is a need to increase the wafer size, which is a technical problem.
There is also a need to continue to reduce the size of the transistor.
This requires financial resources.
After 10 to 20 years a problem
with physics arises as the limits of silicon are reached. By
2010 the size of a transistor will have reached 20 nano-metres
and at this size quantum effects start to manifest themselves.
At that point new technologies will be needed - nanotechnologies.
In about 10 years there will
probably be a mixture of micro and nano. Increases in the density
of integrated circuits may still be pursued, or a bottom up approach
may be adopted involving use of nano materials mixed with microelectronics.
A major challenge that has
to be faced is human resources - ensuring that industry has the
necessary supply of skilled people to support the expected growth
and to solve the technical problems.
Institutions where research,
education and training can be combined are one possible means
of dealing with both the technical and human resource challenges.
Integrated
Circuit Design
The challenge of integrated
circuit design is mastering complexity. Another issue is how
to test integrated circuits containing one hundred million transistors
per square centimetre, given that such a test should only take
1 second!
In the 1990s the focus was
on speed (increasing the clock frequency) and density (the number
of transistors on an integrated circuit). In the first decade
of the 21st century the focus is shifting to power consumption
efficiency (because of the growth in handheld devices) and the
handling complexity (reducing the design and manufacturing costs).
Technologies need to be developed to help people in the design
field.
Currently the industry is facing
a design crisis. Process technologies have been offering efficiency
increases of the order of 59%/year. However, efficiency increases
in the design area are only a low 25% per year. There is a design
gap that prevents design using the technologies to full effect
in the time available. Therefore there is a need for a new design
paradigm to close this gap.
Design reuse provides a means
of closing this gap. Standard cells are now well established
and reuse of IP blocks is now being used. New ideas concerning
architecture reuse are beginning to emerge and some research
is starting on integrated circuit reuse.
There are a number of challenges
that must be dealt with. First is how to master the complexity
of communication, with high-speed massive data transport, making
sure all the data is available at the right time in the right
place. Concepts from telecommunications, such as local communications
and global communications, are entering the field of IC design.
Second is the need to verify the design. Also at the electrical
level issues like noise have to be dealt with.
Applications
Design
In the field of applications
in the automotive area, a number of design challenges are posed.
The importance of automotive electronics is increasing and electronics
is being used in several areas including powertrain, dashboard,
navigation, safety, and in-car entertainment.
In automotive applications,
as in other areas of electronics, economies of scale are important
in order to pave the way for lowers costs and higher quality.
European firms are at the forefront of innovation in the field
or automotive electronics. The value of electronics within cars
is increasing significantly which represents a significant opportunity
for growth and profitability.
One of the fastest growing
areas is that of in-car entertainment systems. Traditionally
this has means a radio, with either an integrated cassette or
CD players. Stand-alone navigational systems are also becoming
a significant item, and growth in this area will be important
in the coming years. However, the systems of the longer-term
future will be integrated multimedia systems incorporating several
different functions - entertainment, communications, navigation,
diagnostics, etc. Services to support some of these functions
will also be introduced - e.g. location based services advising
about the nearest doctor, hospital, 4 star hotel etc.
A key problem is creating the
volume per application and per Application Specific Integrated
Circuit. Customers, that is the car firms, have a tradition in
this area of expecting and demanding unique products. In order
to achieve economies of scale and reduce costs this sort of thinking
must change (a culture change issue). Standardisation is needed,
with good platforms providing lots of re-use potential covering
all the multimedia applications in vehicles, with only a small
amount of customer specific features. Modular designs, design
rules and standard top-level architectures are needed. Systems
should be open, and be capable of being scaled and updated in
the future. By placing some functionality in software it will
also be possible to carry out upgrades to existing products,
which may also lead to an additional source of revenues.
Partnerships with other firms
with the necessary competencies are needed in order to achieve
this goal of design re-use. Understanding the balance between
centralised systems and distributed systems is also important
in order to understand costs factors.
Conclusions
and Future Directions
The costs of researching, designing
and fabricating silicon devices are showing signs of increasing.
Therefore research is needed into reducing the cost of design
through such techniques as reuse of design, modular verification,
and other aspects that can help to keep costs under control.
There is a need for a more multidisciplinary approach in the
semiconductor industry and a need to improve design methods to
reduce costs and improve productivity.
Skill shortages are a key factor
in preventing the realisation of the vision of ubiquitous computing
and networking. A shortage of skilled technologists and engineers
will slow down technology development. More investment needs
to be made in education and training. |