Future silicon technology trends from a system application perspective

Digital CMOS is fast reaching its scaling limits. Nonetheless, CMOS will remain the backbone technology for building all computing functions. While attempts to extend the limits of CMOS will continue, there will also be increasing focus on other silicon technologies that are needed by system designers. For computing systems, large amounts of high-performance on-chip memory are needed to minimize memory-bottleneck penalty. For systems where magnetic disks are not available, large amounts of NVRAM are needed for data storage. High-performance and low-power mixed-signal technology is needed for systems requiring wireless communication. Recent as well as expected advances in these developments are discussed.