Moore's Law may have run its course, says Vinod Dham

The global semiconductor scene is heading for a phase of glut but the technological reality at the root of this has probably run its course, according to Vinod Dham, known as the 'Father of the Pentium Chip'.

Excess output will be the key reason for a glut of semiconductors in the coming years and this will make them cheap and affordable.

"To grapple with this, companies must understand the actual market requirement," Dham told Business Standard. China is building large semiconductor factories to manufacture chips on its own.

"However, their (China's) suppliers in the US and Europe have not stopped supplying to China. All this will definitely lead to a point when there is an overall excessive output. This will lead to a glut of semiconductors in the market," Dham explained.

At the root of the excess supply lies Moore's Law which held that a doubling of processing power takes place every 18 months and there is a corresponding fall in the computing costs.

Falling costs have led to a massive growth in the use of semiconductors which in turn have encouraged chip makers to raise output of faster and cheaper chips.

But this phenomenon may be ending. Moore's Law may be heading for a dead end, "hitting a wall," says Dham, cited the example of Intel to indicate that companies are looking at new methodologies to build these microprocessors.

"Intel has cancelled half a dozen projects with over two years of effort only because of power problem. When power goes up, there is a leakage in the transistors.

"As the power of these processors quadruple, the leakage in transistors becomes an issue. Even if chips come out, power dissipation is high and hence they would not be able to work. Therefore, companies like Intel are staying back where they are and instead, working on different methodologies and architectures," adds Dham.

He feels that bulk of the needs of the market would get determined at the 90 nm to 130 nm range.

"Anything below this will mean more power. Besides, the cost of manufacturing also becomes an issue. Therefore, changing the methodology to design the microprocessors is being looked upon as an alternative rather than scaling it down in terms of size."

The output from a microprocessor has increased 10 times due to various factors like increase in wafer size.

"The number of locations to place the transistors has gone up by a factor of four and we can also place double the number of transistors. This results in nearly a 10x output."

According to Dham, nanotechnology would help create better methodologies and architechtures for manufacturing microprocessors.

"This is at an early stage R&D and definitely not something that India can jump into. However, India has a huge opportunity in solar cell research and biotechnology. God has kept Indian closer to the equator and India receives 50 per cent more sunshine. Therefore we need to harvest more in this technology," he said.