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A Brief History ofthe field of VLSI
Instructor S. DemlowECE 410
J anuary 9, 2012
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The First Transistor
in 1947 J ohn Bardeen and Walter Brattain builtthe first
functioning point contact transistor atBell Labs
Wiki e d ia .o r , Neil H.E. Weste and David Mone HarrisCMOS
VLSI De si n 4thed.
First Transistor (Bell Labs) First IC (Texas Instruments)
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Complementary Metal Oxide
Semiconductor In 1959, Dawon Kahng and Martin M. (J ohn)
Atalla at Bell Labs invented the metaloxidesemiconductor
field-effect transistor (MOSFET) as
an offshoot to the patented FET design.
The method of coupling two complementaryMOSFETS (P-channel and
N-channel) into onehigh/low switch, known asCMOS, means thatdigital
circuits dissipate very little power except
when actually switched. As the number of transistors per chip
increased,
the idle power consumption of BJ Ts (which haveother advantages
over MOSFETS) made CMOSthe dominant technology
Wik ip ed ia . O rg , a nd Neil H.E. Weste and David Money
Harris CMOS VLSI De sign 4thed.
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1970s - nMOS Technology
Intel 1101 SRAM 256 bit static random accessmemory and 4004
4-bit microprocessor
Neil H.E. Weste and David Money Harris CMOS VLSI De sign
4thed.
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How were ICs designed before
computer tools?
Layers were hand drawn, checked with magnifying glasses,
manuallychecked for design rules and layout vs. schematic checks.
The final layoutwas cut out of rubylith, and painstakingly checked
for peeling and cuttingerrors. The first Intel product, the 3101
64-bit RAM was actually a 63-bit RAM
due to a peeling error
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Wikipedia.org, Neil H.E. Weste and David Money HarrisCMO S VLSI
De sign 4thed., http://makeyourownchip.tripod.com/74161.html
VLSI - Very Large Scale Integration
Small ScaleIntegration (SSI)~10 gates
Medium ScaleIntegration (MSI)~1000 gates
4049 Inverter
74161 Counter
Large ScaleIntegration (LSI)~10,000 gates
Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) This naming convention
hasbecome a hassle. Lets just call everything with more transistors
VLSI.
Intel 4004 4-bit
Microprocessor
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Moores LawThe transistor count doubles every 18 months
Wikipedia.org, Neil H.E. Weste and David Money Harris CMOS VLSI
De sign 4thed.
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Steady Miniaturization Compound annual growth rate of 53% for
over 50
years
No other technology in history has sustained sucha high growth
rate for so long
How is it possible?No tradeoff in performance, power and
price:
As transistors get smaller, they also get faster,dissipate less
power, and are cheaper to
manufactureThe only question is: how small can they get?
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Concern 1 The Power Wall
Enormous numbers of gates- switching incredibly fast even
withlow consumption power (and heat) become major design
issues.
Especially as transistors get smaller harder to get a complete
OFF
leakage currents make it worse
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Concern 2 atomic size
Ultimateminimumfeature size
may bedeterminedby atomicspacing inSi the latticeconstant is~0.5
nm.
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The future 22nm and beyond Intels next
generation, madein 22nm fab, will hitstores around April
The 3D transistorredesign that hasmade 22nm and 14nm
processespossible
How small ispossible? The futureis in your hands
