The global route to future semiconductor technology

The idea of constructing a technology roadmap for semiconductors was generated in the early 1990s by the need to bring some consistency among programs proposed in the United States in the field of semiconductors by academic institutions, national laboratories, and commercial semiconductor manufacturers (industry). In this paper the author presents an overview of the 2001 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). The 2001 ITRS is the result of more than 800 researchers from the five leading regions in the semiconductor industry. In this document it is reported that the pace of scaling continues on a two-year cycle up to the present 130-nm technology node. It is anticipated that technology node introduction will resume on a three-year cycle with the next (90 nm) technology node, but so it was predicted several times before and then readjusted to a two-year introduction for the next technology node. Also a new chapter looking beyond classical CMOS has been introduced.