Conclusions

Abstract

The technology breakthroughs resulting in the successive scaling of CMOS transistors has kept Moore’s law alive for more than half a century. An important effect of physical dimension reduction is the increase in attainable operating frequencies. Therefore, devices are not only smaller but also faster, fast enough to surpass the RF spectrum and even the millimeter-wave region. This allowed CMOS to contend for integrated circuits for wireless connectivity applications. With the proliferation and surge of demand for ubiquitous computing and connectivity, the customer pool has expanded tremendously making wireless (devices, applications, services, etc.) one of the fastest growing markets worldwide. The new challenge then becomes to take the cost-effective and mass-production-ready CMOS beyond memory and logic into the “More than Moore” regime. This represents a new dimension in integration, whereby hybrid mixed-mode systems co-exist on the same silicon substrate, essentially combining memory, logic, power, analog, and RF circuits into one: a radio System-on-Chip.