A Density Metric for Semiconductor Technology

Since its inception, the semiconductor industry has used a physical dimension (the minimum gate length of a transistor) as a means to gauge continuous technology advancement. This metric is all but obsolete today. As a replacement, we propose a density metric, which aims to capture how advances in semiconductor device technologies enable system-level benefits. The proposed metric can be used to gauge advances in future generations of semi-conductor technologies in a holistic way, by accounting for the progress in logic, memory, and packaging/integration technologies simultaneously.