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Technology Stocks : LSI Corporation

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To: shane forbes who wrote (11001)	3/19/1998 5:09:00 PM
From: Grand Poobah	Read Replies (1) of 25814

Shane, I enjoy reading your postings. You always add a lot to the discussion. Your profile mentions you as an actuary/programmer; how did you become so knowledgeable about the semiconductor industry? <<They do mention the problem that software is poor and EDA tools have not kept up with the sub-micron designs. ("Dirty little secret - software does not work for designs with over 150,000 gates"). I've mentioned before that I suspect LSI's momentum got thumped for a good long time thanks to this little problem.>> The semiconductor company that I worked for, and which shall remain nameless, had this same problem. I believe the EDA tools have come a long way in the last few years, but a lot of companies don't make the investment in the tools or internal processes until they stub their toe. Design for testability is a big obstacle. It is easier to design a chip with 1M gates than it is to test it. <<Finally they mention that semiconductors are now hitting against those famous quantum mechanical limitations and Gordon Moore is not sure whether the paradigm of "smaller, faster and cheaper" (I think that's what it is) will be coming to a grinding halt once we get under 0.1 or so.>> They have been saying this kind of thing for decades. In a sense they are right--if processes are not changed and innovations made, we will hit the wall not too far down the road. But innovations are always made because there is $$ to be made. I was not aware that we were hitting the quantum mechanical arena yet in semiconductors. I believe the first area this will be noticed is in tunneling through the gate oxides, which are currently around 80-100 angstroms thick for 0.35 um devices. I believe at the present time this tunneling current is present but negligible. So yes it will become more serious as the transistor gets smaller and will have to be dealt with, but I would not agree that things will come to a grinding halt because of quantum effects. When it does come into play they will figure out a way to deal with it. G.P.

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