Microelectronics in the “More than Moore” era

In the fifty years since integrated circuits made their debut, we have witnessed amazing progress in the ability to perform electronic functions. Progress in microprocessors, memory, and data conversion has revolutionized data processing, control, communications, and the way we live. The number of transistors/ chip has increased by a factor of a billion and performance has improved at least a million-fold, with corresponding decreases in cost. For forty years, this progress has been driven by scaling and “Moore's Law”; however, fabrication facility cost has now increased to the point where it now exceeds the GNP of many countries, forcing many companies to go fabless. It also appears that the scaling paradigm is coming to an end, at least using devices as we know them. As a result, intense efforts on chip-stacking, through-silicon vias (TSVs), and new materials such as graphene are underway [1].