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 Semiconductor materials have been at the heart of modern electronics for more than 50 years. Ever since Bell Labs spawned the transistor and clever designers have made it the brain of computers and communications, the task has been to make it smaller and faster.
 We are now at the dawn of the new materials age. No longer satisfied to look for more scaling factors for current silicon-indeed, actually forced by nature to hunt for alternatives-researchers and electronics designers are looking at combining a variety of chemical elements for next-generation chips. Further on, biological cells are being investigated to combine with semiconductor materials for yet-uncharted applications.
This special supplement to EE Times covers the gamut of the possible and prognosticates on the yet-to-be discovered. The issue addresses the challenges confronting the semiconductor industry, from current technologies to new directions.
We also profile 13 influencers who will be instrumental in determining the shape and scope of things to come.
— Nic Mokhoff
Editor, Special Features
Editorial
Editorial
by Richard Wallace
Things to Come
What will it take to return to prosperity?
Technology has a life cycle. When introduced as the applied practice of discovered science, new technology usually takes a while to catch on.
by Girish Mhatre
One World
Europe sees 'biochips' as long-term endeavor
Europe's leading semiconductor companies hope to grab the brass ring by applying fundamental semiconductor technologies to the field of medicine-in the form of microarrays, microfluidics and neuro chips.
by Junko Yoshida
China hyped as the Wild West of the East
Take note: This could be the year that the Chinese drink more beer than the Americans. That's right. From the mid 1980s to today, the Chinese consumption of beer has risen 10-fold.
by Mike Clendenin
Japan pins a rebound on joint R&D in post-PC era
After a decade of steadily declining fortunes, Japan Inc. is now determinedly regrouping. A massive round of consolidations, followed by the establishment of numerous R&D consortia, is at the core of the country's strategy to regain leadership in semiconductors.
by Yoshiko Hara
Technologies
Classical CMOS
Turbo-charging CMOS presents vexing choices
Scaling CMOS to finer dimensions is like climbing an increasingly steep mountain. The peaks ahead are scary.
by David Lammers
Fundamental Limits
Physics is not the hurdle for scaling CMOS
The minimum energy needed to perform the basic computing operation-the switching of a 0 to a 1-can be expressed as E(min) = (ln2)kT, where T represents absolute temperature, k is Boltzmann's constant and ln2 is the natural log of 2.
by Peter Clarke
System-on-Chip
SoC: Stuck in the mud or Charging ahead?
As an application for future systems-on-chip, consider the 3G-cellphone wristwatch. Functionally, it would combine a cellular phone with an integral antenna, microphone and speaker.
by Ron Wilson
Memories
New materials key to storage demands
The economic turmoil of the last few years has masked a quiet revival in memory technology that could reshape the competitive landscape before decade's end.
by Anthony Cataldo
Design, Verification and Test
Productivity may stumble at 100 nm
Potential applications of sub-100-nm process technology, which makes possible hundreds of millions of transistors in a single chip, are dazzling.
by Richard Goering
Statistical tooIs balance yield, performance
Statistical timing analysis, still largely in the labs of academia, promises to allow semiconductor companies to optimize designs for timing, yield or cost or home in on the right mix of all three for a given design project.
by Michael Santarini
Engines of Growth
Wireless Revolution
Tetherless world looks to single technology
This is the most innovative time ever in radio technology. From cordless phones to wireless LANs and 3G cellular, from ultrawideband to software-defined radio, ubiquitous wireless connectivity is changing business and life.
by Patrick Mannion
RF design tools are bottleneck to some, opportunities for others
As RF CMOS integration follows its exponential curve with multiple radios on single chips operating at higher frequencies and with added digital circuitry, the ability of available tools to perform accurate simulations is falling further behind.
by Patrick Mannion
Display Bonanza
March is on for more intelligent pixels
The next two to three years will bring dramatic changes for imagers and displays, as higher-resolution cameras take up residence in cell phones and large-area displays aim for a big boost in image quality.
by Charles J. Murray
Sensors bring inertia to cell phones, PDAs
Just as consumers begin to grow accustomed to the idea of cell phone-cameras, engineers from STMicroelectronics say they've spotted another new handheld trend on the horizon.
by Charles J. Murray
Robotic Exercise
Autonomous machines grow brains and legs
Robotic development of 20 years ago meant one of two things: On the factory floor, fixed-function devices relied on simple vision systems and 8- or 16-bit integer microcontrollers for positioning control.
by Loring Wirbel
Electronic Brains
Biochips take a lesson from 'Proteomics'
Though it is far from evident in the day-to-day business of semiconductors, the integrated circuits business has deep roots in biology.
by Chappell Brown
New Directions
Reconfigurability
Computing dons new suits as required
For advocates of reconfigurable computing, it can seem like a new religion: Supercomputer performance from a handheld, battery-powered portable.
by Stephan Ohr
Modern Senses
The blind shall see, the deaf shall hear
Enabling the blind to see and the deaf to hear was once a biblical tale of divine intervention, but today silicon chips are enabling such miracles.
by R. Colin Johnson
Personal Tags
Identification intended to infiltrate us
Semiconductors are poised to invade our clothes, our bodies and almost every product that we buy.
by Rick Merritt
Nano Race
Organic polymers to precede nano semi
With the advent of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic semiconductors have thrown down the gauntlet as alternatives to silicon in some applications.
by R. Colin Johnson
The glitch may be in makeup of organic polymer molecules
Organic materials consist of long chains of protein molecules repeatedly linked with smaller carbon-based molecules (hence the term "organic").
by R. Colin Johnson
Influencers
Influencers
EE Times has chosen 13 people who are influencing the course of semiconductor development taking it into realms that exceed the bounds set by the inventors of the transistor more than 50 years ago.
by Brian Fuller
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