IEEE expands ITRS to include systems
5/4/2016 06:00 AM EDT
SAN JOSE, Calif. – The traditional process of setting an industry roadmap for semiconductors has been taken on by the IEEE and expanded to include all computing. The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), first published in 1965, will start a new life as the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS) officially on May 12 when members hold their first meeting in Belgium.
The new effort aims to take a broad view of the needs of computing generally. It will address road map issues that include computer systems, architectures and software as well as the chips and other components used in them.
The move comes at a time when Moore’s law is widely seen as slowing as transistors approach the size of a handful of atoms. In the face of the growing cost and complexity of traditional shrinks in semiconductor process technology companies are increasingly turning to new techniques to bolster performance such as novel ways of packaging chips and designing computers.
“Over the past decade, the structure and requirements of the electronics industry have evolved well beyond the semiconductor’s industry requirements,” said Paolo A. Gargini, an IEEE fellow, chairman of IRDS and veteran of the ITRS process. “The IRDS will deliver a 15-year vision that encompasses systems and devices, setting a new direction for the future of the semiconductor, communications, IoE and computer industries,” he said in an IEEE press release.
The move comes at a time when the ITRS has lost some of its clout. The road map used to point a wide variety of chip makers toward a common set of technical milestones. In recent years, a consolidating set of chip makers have forged their own road maps, often naming nodes in ways more driven by marketing than engineering executives.
Participants in the IRDS will convene 12-13 May 2016 in Leuven, Belgium, home of the Imec research institute that has long been at the forefront of pre-competitive research in semiconductor process technology. The IRDS group will review the roadmap activities of existing teams and lay out plans for additional activities in 2016. It will discuss topics including system integration, heterogeneous integration, connectivity, future IC devices and factory integration.
“Bringing the IRDS under the IEEE umbrella will create a new Moore’s law of computer performance, and accelerate bringing to market new, novel computing technologies,” said IEEE fellow Thomas M. Conte, co-chair of the IEEE Rebooting Computing Initiative and professor of the Schools of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The IRDS is part of the Industry Connections program of the IEEE Standards Association, sponsored by the IEEE Rebooting Computing Initiative in consultation with the IEEE Computer Society. The IEEE Rebooting Computing Initiative is a program of the IEEE Future Directions Committee. The IEEE’s Industry Connections program incubates new standards and related products and services.
