Along for the ride: Reflections on the past, present, and future of semiconductor electronics

Abstract

Semiconductor electronics has been on a remarkable ride, and it is far from over. Since Gordon Moore formulated his famous law in 1965, progress in semiconductor technology has continued unabated, and the result has transformed the modern world. Microelectronics has become nanoelectonics, and the transistor has become the most ubiquitous device on the planet. This talk has two objectives. The first is to discuss the device that made microelectronics possible, the transistor, and the second is to peer into the future. I'll present a simple, physical, and non-mathematical view of the transistor. Transistor scaling is the engine that drives Moore's Law. When I began my career as a process engineer, the critical dimensions of transistors were 5-micrometers (5000 nanometers). In the not so distant future, we hope to be manufacturing transistors with 5 nanometer dimensions. Pushing MOSFET scaling to its limit and exploring new switching devices are essential, but today we can see the end of the downscaling paradigm. Students, faculty, and our colleagues in industry are asking: “What comes next?” No one has a crystal ball, but it seems certain that the next 50 years will be just as interesting and significant as the past 50, just different. I'll reflect on what the continued progress in electronics and the current convergence of knowledge and technologies from different disciplines means for the future of electronics and what it mean for the way we educate students and keep practicing engineers current.