Abstract:
Steel transformed civilization in the 20th century, shifting from high-tech material to commodity in the process. Silicon is undergoing an analogous transition, as the action shifts from circuits to systems. This talk will argue that multiple convergent trends are pushing us toward the terascale age, presenting us with both historic opportunities and historic challenges. The latter extend from DC to the millimeter wave, and from design tools to the economics of test. Securing a network possessing an "attack surface" of unprecendented magnitude, as well as supplying power to a trillion devices, remain unsolved problems as well. Solving these problems will complete the transition of silicon from today's ubiquity to tomorrow's invisibility.