Moore’s Law versus More Than Moore (MTM)

In April 1965, Moore published a paper in Electronics with the title, “Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits.” Based on a few data points, Moore proposed to put more transistors on an IC by reducing the feature sizes. Further, he suggested that the number of transistors on an IC (for minimum cost) doubles every 24 months. In the past 40+ years, Moore’s observation (law) about silicon integration (i.e., cost, yield, and reliability) has been the most powerful driver for development of the microelectronics industry. This law places emphasis on lithography scaling and integration [in two dimensions (2D)] of all functions on a




single chip, perhaps through system-on-chip (SoC) capabilities. Today, 32-nm ICs are in volume production, and production of 28-nm ICs is planned to begin in the second half of 2010. In the meantime, 22-nm technology has been working/performing very well in research institutions and laboratories.
On the other hand, integration of all these functions can be achieved through system-in-package (SiP) or, ultimately, 3D IC integration and WLP, which is called more than Moore (MTM).It should be pointed out that MTM is much more than just SiP.
Based on the silicon-platform technology, anything that involves the integration of electronics, photonics, mechanics, chemistry, heat, magnetics, biology, etc., for functionality and system performance when interacting with people and the environment can be called MTM. One of the reasons why MEMS is called MTM is because the microelectronic ICs are thought of as the “brains” of a system, and MEMS augments this decision-making capability with “eyes” and “arms” to allow microsystems to sense and control the environment.