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To: Fred Fahmy who wrote (71629)	1/20/1999 12:15:00 AM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Fred & Intel Investors - Moore's Law isn't slowing down - but it may be SPEEDING UP ! Check this out: "The biggest change being considered for the 1999 roadmap is a proposal to shift completely to a two-year technology cycle for 70% generation shrinks instead of the historical three-year cycles, something that has been the basis of Moore's law since the 1970s." Paul {================================} edtn.com Top Technology Story: Semiconductor Business News 1998 revision of roadmap moves up technology targets By J. Robert Lineback SAN JOSE -- What started out last year as a fine-tuning of the U.S. semiconductor technology roadmap has turned into an extensive revision of the document. Some major technology targets, in fact, have been moved ahead by one year. Nearly 50% of the 63 tables published in the 1997 update of the Semiconductor Industry Association roadmap have been revised, said Paolo A. Gargini, director of technology at Intel Corp., who heads SIA efforts to come up with the 1999 roadmap update. "In some cases the changes to the tables were minor, [but] others were more significant," he explained. "But when it was all said and done, we decided to move the technology nodes ahead by one year [covering the period 2002-2009]." The decision to push technology nodes ahead was not in the plan initially, but the technology working groups concluded this would reflect the accelerated pace of process shrinks already going on in the industry, according to Gargini. He is now pushing to do the updates annually instead of every two years (see story in the December 1998 publication of SBN). The 1998 revision to the 1997 SIA roadmap also marks the first time that international input from Japan and Europe has gone into a document that previously covered only U.S. technology. The expanded input has turned the revised U.S. document into the "International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors," or ITRS. Ratified early in January, the 1998 revisions will be made available shortly on the SIA's Web site, as well as a document by March, Gargini said. The roadmap now shows 0.13-micron technology for DRAMs moving into wafer fabs in 2002 instead of 2003, as targeted in the 1997 National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. For microprocessors, the revised roadmap calls for processes with drawn gate lengths of 0.10 micron to move into plants in 2002 instead of 2003. Looking farther out, the revised roadmap targets 0.10-micron half-pitch technology for DRAMs and 0.07-micron drawn gates for MPUs in 2005 instead of 2006. It also moved up 0.07-micron DRAM processes and 0.50-micron MPU technologies from 2009 to 2008. This acceleration of technology node milestones may continue in the upcoming 1999 roadmap update, which is now in the works and expected to be completed by the end of the year. An aggressive proposal is on the table to move up all those process technology nodes by another year, Gargini noted. The technology working groups also are considering a proposal to split DRAM and MPU technologies. "Microprocessor and memory technology nodes are now in lockstep," said the roadmap chairman. "We are in discussions now about whether this is true." "The impression is that microprocessors are moving a little faster than dynamic RAMs," he said. In the 1997 roadmap, the SIA decided to designate MPUs as a co-technology driver with DRAMs, which had been considered the industry's main vehicle for new processes in the past two decades. The biggest change being considered for the 1999 roadmap is a proposal to shift completely to a two-year technology cycle for 70% generation shrinks instead of the historical three-year cycles, something that has been the basis of Moore's law since the 1970s.