MICRO: Industry News: Lead Story (February 2001)

Bowing to the rapid pace of process development, the international team writing the semiconductor industry's technology roadmap has issued an interim update of the document. The mid-course correction to the 1999 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors ) revises the map's technology node timelines and pinpoints technologies such as metrology and defect reduction that require some improvements in several key areas. Most important, the writing committee lays out three scenarios for potential node trends as they apply to DRAM half-pitch for 2001. That year is the date for the next official revision. A primary impetus for the update is the fact that chip production at the 130-nm technology node will begin this year and not in 2002 as forecast in the 1999 . The update notes that the International Roadmap Committee (IRC) pulled the 180-nm node in one year to 1999 just as members were putting the finishing touches on the 1999 in November. Amid great debate, the industry decided to stick with the original three-year intervals between technology advances in DRAM half-pitch chips in the 1999 document rather than move to an accelerated two-year cycle. Yet, lo and behold, the