SIA makes public technology roadmap

SAN FRANCISCO--The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has made public its 2011 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), first presented in Incheon, South Korea last Dec. 14. Sponsored by Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the United States, the report is overseen by the SIA, the voice of America’s semiconductor manufacturing industry.

Dealing with both near and long-term challenges as well as potential innovations, the roadmap lays out what it sees as the path for semiconductor design and manufacturing through 2026.

The aim in looking so far ahead, said the SIA, is to anticipate technical challenges well in advance, giving the industry and research community time to dedicate resources to overcoming them.

One of those key challenges, said SIA president Brian Toohey, was keeping pace with Moore’s Law, and how to continue decreasing the size of semiconductors while increasing performance standards to meet consumer demands.


Meanwhile, other key advancements pertaining to memory, flash, and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and sensors were also discussed at length, as were opportunities in 3D chip stacking.

The ITRS singled out Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) development as particularly fast accelerating, noting it would allow for the faster introduction of technologies like higher-performance servers and sophisticated graphics for game consoles.

Flash memory was also given special mention for the role it plays as memory in mobile devices like digital cameras, tablets, and cell phones. Flash is expected to see accelerated development over the next couple of years and that the introduction of three-dimensional in 2016 would allow for greater memory capabilities for a range of consumer devices, said the SIA.

In addition, innovative interconnects, switches, devices, and materials to advance nanotechnology were discussed at length in the ITRS, along with RF and Analog Mixed-signal based technologies.