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Program Speakers  Preliminary Program<< Back |
Dr. Martin A. SchmidtMassachusetts Institute of Technology HOW COULD PURSUIT OF MOORE'S LAW POSSIBLY STIFLE INNOVATION AT THE MICRO/NANO-SCALE? For decades, the Integrated Circuit industry has followed the prescient vision offered by Gordon Moore. The less well know Moore's Second Law (Rock's Law) predicted that cost of a semiconductor chip fabrication plant doubles every four years. Lastly, depreciation schedules for semiconductor plants result in a 'rule of thumb' that the first year revenue from the plant must match the capital investment to create the fab. Taken together, these 'rules' lead to an increasingly dire situation where applications of micro/nano fabrication to 'sub $1B markets' is becoming economically unviable. I will make the case that without new manufacturing paradigms, we are facing a crisis both in the translation of ideas to commercialization and the economic manufacturing of these products. We will explore several paths out of this crisis. |