Processor Watch

November 15, 2004

Editor: Tom R. Halfhill

In this issue:

Innovation Drives the Future
Kevin Krewell - Senior Editor  {11/15/2004}

Talking about Moore’s Law in the processor business is akin to talking about religion—especially for Intel, where it is close to gospel. Yet everyone in the industry talks about it. To the many of the industry, it is a benchmark against which we can compare the industry’s progress. While some say the present problems with increases in power and leakage signal the end of Moore’s Law progress, to Dr. Bernie Meyerson of IBM, the present problems signal the end of “classical scaling.” Meyerson gave the opening keynote at our Fall Processor Forum 2004.

Dr. Meyerson pointed out that in the past four decades, “classic” scaling has been largely unimpeded, with transistor sizes ever decreasing: smaller transistors that were faster and cheaper, consumed less power, had higher integration, and were the driver for the industry. But voltages can decrease only so much, transistor capacitance can go only so low, and faster transistors can drive clock frequencies only so high before some limitations appear—like the laws of physics.

What it will take is a series of innovations to the CMOS semiconductor process, as well as integrated and concurrent innovations in circuit and system designs.

A summary of Dr. Meyerson’s points:

· Innovation has overtaken scaling as the driver of semiconductor technology performance gains.

· Processor design and metrics have already changed irrevocably as teams comprehend the implications of the power cliff to which some designs have fallen victim.

· System-level solutions, optimized via holistic design, will ultimately dominate progress in information technology.

Microprocessor Report readers can access the full story (4 pages, 5 graphics) here: www.mdronline.com/mpr/h/2004/1115/184601.html. To find out more about Microprocessor Report, please visit: www.mdronline.com.

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