Ripples in the process pool

摘要

Look at any IC these days, you'll see a combination of electrical performance, functions, size, and cost that vendors could not have attained just a few years ago. It's not that bright IC designers didn't populate the industry then. Many of the craft's best practitioners have been hard at work for decades. Rather, the stuff that IC manufacturers use to make their devices has been changing, enabling designs that not long ago were simply impractical and advancing those that were to new price and performance levels (see sidebar "How much Moore?").