ULSI market opportunities and manufacturing challenges

It is pointed out that the decade of the 90s promises to see the semiconductor world proceed to the gigachip capability. Electronic applications will become more pervasive provided the semiconductor industry delivers a continued improvement in density, performance, reliability, and cost per function. The manufacture of integrated circuits, however, is becoming more and more expensive. It is suggested that counteracting this trend will require major paradigm shifts in the way ICs are made. The projected growth of R&D costs and capital costs per scaling generation is 40%-50%. Ways in which these costs might be managed in the future are examined. It is believed that the affordability of gigachip manufacturing demands a new approach to design, control and implementation of the technology. This approach should have as its goals the consideration of the life cycle use of the technology and reuse of the engineering, capital, and operational funds.<>