THE INTERNATIONAL ROADMAP COMMITTEE POSITION ON TECHNOLOGY PACING

In previous editions of the ITRS, the term “technology node” (or “hpXX node”) was used in an attempt to provide a single, simple indicator of overall industry progress in integrated circuit (IC) feature scaling. It was specifically defined as the smallest half-pitch of contacted metal lines on any product. Historically, DRAM has been the product which, at a given time, exhibited the tightest contacted metal pitch and, thus, it “set the pace” for the ITRS technology nodes.

However, we are now in an era in which there are multiple significant drivers of scaling and believe that it would be misleading to continue with a single highlighted driver, including DRAM.

For example, along with half-pitch advancements, design factors have also rapidly advanced in Flash memory cell design, enabling additional acceleration of functional density. Flash technology has also advanced the application of electrical doubling of density of bits, enabling increased functional density independent of lithography half-pitch drivers. A second example is given by the MPU/ASIC products, for which the speed performance driver continues to be the gate-length isolated feature size, which requires the use of leading-edge lithography and also additional etch technology to create the final physical dimension.

Significant confusion relative to the historical ITRS node definition continues to be an issue in many press releases and other documents that have referred to “node acceleration” based on other, frequently undefined, criteria. Of course, we now expect different IC parameters to scale at different rates, and it is certainly legitimate to recognize that many of these have product-specific implications.

In the 2007 ITRS, we will continue the practice of eliminating references to the term “technology node.” As mentioned above, the IRC has recommended that the only standard header will be year of first production, and DRAM M1 half-pitch is just one among several historical indicators of IC scaling.

With this latest change to standard ITRS table format policy, it is hoped that the ITRS will not contribute to industry confusion related to the concept of “technology node.” Of course, “node” terminology will continue to be used by others. Hopefully, they will define their usage within the context of the application to the technology of a specific product.