Posted on Tuesday, April 26 2011 @ 22:51 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
TSMC chairman Morris Chang
said Moore's Law may come to an end within the next 6 to 8 years:
Nevertheless, Moore's Law may soon encounter a bottleneck, Chang indicated. While the continuously shrinking of process technologies poses a challenge to the industry, companies will need other design innovations to extend Moore's Law beyond its expected limits, Chang noted.
For instance, there is room to miniaturize PCB components, Chang said. The market for emerging applications, which highlights low power consumption and audio-video capabilities, will be where the semiconductor industry will find its new development trend, Chang indicated.
TSMC has already ramped up output using 28nm process technology, and is set to enter trial production on 20nm in the second half of 2012, according to company senior R&D VP Shang-yi Chiang. Chiang estimated that it would take about 10 years for TSMC to transition to sub-10nm nodes.
