No exponential is forever: but "Forever" can be delayed! [semiconductor industry]

TLDR

The semiconductor industry has grown from zero to over $200 billion in annual revenue, underpinning a trillion‑dollar electronics sector, driven by unique technology and an elastic market, with key parameters such as chip complexity, performance, feature size, and transistor count rising roughly exponentially over time. The talk examines current silicon technology trends and the challenges ahead.

Abstract

By any measure, the semiconductor industry has experienced fantastic growth over the last 50 years. Starting from nothing, it has now passed $200 billion in annual revenue and has become the foundation of a trillion-dollar electronics industry. This unprecedented growth is the result of the combination of a unique technology and an extremely elastic market. Over this brief history, many parameters relating to the industry have changed approximately exponentially with time. These include chip complexity, chip performance, feature size, and the numbers of transistors produced each year. This talk will explore some of these trends, and will look at the current status of silicon technology, and at challenges going forward.