ARM wrestles with silicon, battery hurdles

Rick Merritt, EETimes
8/19/2011 12:10 AM EDT

PALO ALTO, Calif. – Big hurdles in silicon scaling and battery technology stand in the way of huge opportunities in mobile systems, said an ARM executive in a keynote here.

"Silicon scaling will end at some point, and I think it's coming sooner than many people think," said Simon Segars, general manager of ARM's physical IP division in a keynote at the annual Hot Chips event here. What's more, "we really need a new battery technology," he said.

With silicon atoms measuring a fraction of a nanometer in diameter and process technology approaching single nm digits, "you can only scale so far before we need other materials like III-V semiconductors," he said

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