"The Internet is the ultimate super system for the next 10 years," Corrigan predicted during his keynote address to the IEEE International ASIC/SoC conference here. As access to the Internet grows here and abroad, the need for more bandwidth will also grow. "A lot of infrastructure will be needed," Corrigan said. "A lot of that infrastructure is going to be silicon."

With the Internet and networking technology emerging as the key drivers of SoC development, industry leaders are beginning to worry how chip makers will marshal the necessary engineering resources to meet the coming bandwidth challenge. Corrigan said one solution is the Internet itself.

The "big multiplier" is the huge number of scientists and engineers around the world with nearly instantaneous access to the latest SoC design developments, Corrigan said. "I think this [ready access to technical data] is going to be huge."

Corrigan said LSI Logic is already seeing the impact of the Internet on system development. He noted that customers are frequently requesting unspecified ports on chip and system designs to allow for future connectivity to the Internet. Sony's newest Playstation is an example. At the system level, "The number of access points to the Internet is growing at an almost exponential rate," he said.

Still, Corrigan said the chip industry has to clear several key design and manufacturing hurdles before the huge investment in SoC development begins to pay off. "The tools are not filling the productivity gap" as the industry struggles to move below 0.18-micron feature sizes, he warned.

As for SoC implementation, Corrigan predicted greater use of mixed-signal technologies and continued reliance on CMOS process technology as the industry works to confront the bandwidth gap. "Evolving CMOS will do the job for the next 10 years," he predicted, while gallium arsenide and other emerging technologies continue to develop slowly.

Corrigan also called on the industry to spend a greater percentage of research funding on systems knowledge as it presses ahead with SoC development. One reason, he said, is that OEMs are increasingly looking to chip makers to supply components, operating systems and applications software.

"We're into a whole new chapter in the chip business," he said.