For anyone who might be interested in the underlying physics of electronics, and the challenges facing chip designers these days, there is an excellent article by the technology writer John Markoff in today's (Sep 1, 2009) NY Times Science section: After the Transistor, a Leap Into the Microcosm.
Many researchers feel that the asymptote of Moore's Law (roughly that circuit density doubles every two years) is rapidly approaching, and that current technologies will reach their limit of miniaturization very soon. The article surveys various efforts in the labs these days at coming up with new approaches to continuing the quest.
and thanks a lot for your hint to the article. Moore's law, always a controversy discussion. Esp. after his revision to 2 pow 1.8 in 1969...
Working in the field of hardware fault tolerance and chip design I gain more and more comfort in Moores law. Accepting that it roots are in the late 60's and it's truth up to the point in time now it's worthwile mentioning.
Things changing. Almost 40 years ago transistors usually where bipolar.
Fast and energy hungry..
Early 70's CMOS came up and the thickness of the gate insulation governs the speed. I remember vividly a symposium in spain regarding the quantum ballistic behaviour of electrons in semiconductors. They stated a max switching freq. of 800 MHz, it was around 1996. ;D
Not a year later they came up with 12 Angstroem alowing 1.2 GHz ;D
The question today, my opion, is how to connect billions of transistors within an die to keep up Moore's law. Interconnection is the real challenge today, isn't it? How to reduce permeability? How to deal with dispersion?
I really love microelectronics because it involves so much mechanical engineering, esp. cooling. 1/4 of an inch sqaured of electronics and an awful lot of cooling equipment.
A typical high-end Intel microprocessor is today based on roughly one billion transistors or more, each capable of switching on and off about 300 billion times a second and packed densely enough that two million transistors would fit comfortably in the period at the end of this sentence.
I think the "300 billion times a second" might be a typo. What is the present state of the art switching speed for a Intel, 3ghz?
that current technologies will reach their limit of miniaturization very soon.
Yes they have been saying that since the early 80s, if you say it for long enough there is a chance you might be right one day. Don't hold your breath.