Microelectronic fabrication: An examination of the ever growing struggle to get smaller

Microelectronics, the science and art of electronic miniaturization, is a field full of excitement, challenge and rapid change. The first successful planar fabrication techniques produced single transistors in 1959, and integrated circuits were fabricated shortly thereafter at Fair-child Semiconductor and Texas Instruments. These first integrated circuits formed simple logic gates from several transistors and resistors. From this modest beginning, the number of electronic components on an integrated circuits die doubled yearly through the mid 1970s as shown in Fig. 1. Since then, the growth rate appears to have decreased to one of quadrupling every three years.