he Internet is changing the way we live and interact, and its exponential growth is changing the economies of the world. The metrics, whether measured by new users, data packets or e-commerce dollars, indicate a far greater growth rate than technology metrics of the latter 20th century. The law of accelerating returns is in full force and the result offers challenges and opportunities for the suppliers of electronic systems in computing and communications.
System complexity is increasing at a faster rate than integrated circuit complexity, doubling every four months instead of every 24 months as originally envisioned by Moore's Law for the microprocessor. As we begin the 21st century, Moore's Law is now applied to the semiconductor industry as a whole, especially to the ASICs and system-on-chip (SoC) methodologies that struggle to double in density every 12 to 18 months. This suggests that the gap in complexity between systems and semiconductor components is widening.
Increased system complexity requires increased wafer fabrication complexity. At the same time, shrinking critical dimensions are degrading yields. The result is higher manufacturing costs. But that's only part of the problem. Today's EDA tools are ill-equipped to predict the functional impact of parasitic interactions that were once second- or third-order effects, and delayed market introductions and lower margins after introduction are the result. System design at the printed-circuit-board level offers the most flexibility and lowest cost, but PCB technology has hit the walls of limited performance, limited routing density, excessive parasitic inductance and capacitance.
An alternative solution is emerging that combines high-performance integrated circuits and a modular design methodology that can sustain accelerated increases in performance and complexity. System-in-a-Package (SiP) is essentially a partitioning technology that combines existing components-ASIC, SoC, DRAM and the like-into a single package. Partitioning is a natural response when systems become too complex and too unwieldy to define, design and manufacture as single entities.
You can write a "flat" program to send "hello world" to a computer screen, but if you are trying to send "hello world" to every appliance attached to the Internet, to be received simultaneously in the receiver's native language, you'll need a lot of hierarchy.
Increasing complexity with accelerated time-to-market presents significant challenges to established ways of designing and developing systems.
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Sam Brown
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