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The Advanced Research Initiative in Microelectronics, ARI-MEL, launched on 15 September 1995 and accompanied by a comprehensive Information Package, addresses key emerging technologies for information processing circuits that are likely to form the basis for and lead to future generations of novel microelectronic components and devices. Using the focused cluster integrated approach, the initiative will tackle all the issues and technologies that will be required to achieve the long-term target of producing two types, in the first instance, of microelectronic components (further focused clusters may be added at a later stage):
The serial nature of conventional circuit architectures results in long interconnection lines on the chips, with most of the devices being idle at any one instant. In combination to the continuous downscaling of ICs, this has resulted in electrical interconnects representing a formidable bottleneck to further performance increase and miniaturisation. Research activities will therefore seek to combine optical and electrical interconnects to alleviate some of the above bottlenecks and obtain circuits with higher functionality and better performance. It is also likely that non-conventional circuit architectures, such as hybrid parallel/serial, will be required to take full advantage of optoelectronic interconnects. The emphasis throughout will be on research approaches that could lead to cost effective, manufacturable and practical solutions.
The drive towards small dimensions and high performance has led to the emergence of concepts and devices that exploit inherently low power quantum phenomena for their operation, opening up new possibilities for device functionality. Research activities will seek to develop technologies that have the potential to revolutionise information processing circuits in terms of performance, power consumption and manufacturability. Research work will integrate efforts in:
Optoelectronic interconnects for integrated circuits are addressed in the 15 September 1995 Esprit call, and quantum integrated circuits will be addressed in the 15 December 1995 call. Further calls may be announced in due course.
The indicative total budget for ARI-MEL is 25 MECU.
Since the emergence of digital microprocessor and memory chips in the late 1960s, the use of microelectronic integrated circuits has been extending to all product categories, from mainframe computers to washing machines and wristwatches. Semiconductor devices are now at the basis of our business efficiency, of industrial competitiveness, and have pervaded our homes, offices and cars. The corner stone of this expansion is the tremendous increase in performance and the reduction in cost of information processing and storage: During the last 25 years, the capacity of memory chips increased by a factor of 64,000 and the cost per bit now stands at 10-7 Ecu; microprocessor chips improved their performance 3000-fold and the cost per transistor is now less than 10-5 Ecu.
Underlying this trend is the reduction in the circuit minimum feature size, which passed from 10 microns in 1970 to 0.35 microns in 1995. However, as feature sizes will approach 0.10 microns early in the next century, technological bottlenecks arising from electrical interconnections (density, delays, coupling effects, power consumption), doping fluctuations, tunnelling currents, design complexity, the resolution of lithographic processes and huge investment costs may make further progress in conventional technology financially untenable.
If that point is reached, either the continuous exponential improvement in cost per function that has been driving the expansion of information technology for the last twenty years will slow down, or technological breakthroughs will give rise to new alternatives and device generations which will sustain the continuing growth not only of the microelectronics industry but of all the industrial sectors it underpins.
The search for alternative device structures that overcome current limitations is therefore likely to intensify in the years to come. Fortune favours the well prepared: ARI-MEL, launched as part of Long Term Research in Esprit, aims at ensuring a strong competitive position for the EU in the key emerging technologies for information processing circuits. It will pursue this aim through highly integrated, focused, and closely coordinated RTD activities.
For more information please contact:
K. Glinos
fax +32-2-29 68 390
e-mail konstantinos.glinos@dg3.cec.be
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