The new era of scaling in an SoC world

The time has passed when traditional MOSFET scaling techniques were adequate to meet the needs of microprocessor products, but that has not meant the end of Moore's Law nor the end of improvements in microprocessor performance and power. In the new era of device scaling, innovations in materials and device structure are just as important as dimensional scaling. The past trend of using smaller transistors to build larger microprocessor cores operating at higher frequency and consuming more power is also at an end. The new era of microprocessor scaling is a system-on-a-chip approach that combines a diverse set of components using adaptive circuits, integrated sensors, sophisticated power-management techniques, and increased parallelism to build products that are many-core, multi-core, and multi-function. Although many promising technologies and device options are in the research pipeline, we need to recognize that we are doing system integration, and the future challenge we face is learning how to integrate an ever wider range of heterogeneous elements.