Preface

Abstract

Rumors about forthcoming twilight of silicon-based microelectronics seem to be exaggerated. Microelectronics has been continuously developing for the past three decades – for instance every three years a new generation of memories becomes available on the market with the capacity four times larger than that of the previous generation. The current „official” development forecast published by SIA (Semiconductor Industry Association) reaches ahead to the years 2012–2015. There are, however, more aggressive forecasts available that reach even as far as the year 2020. While the development of silicon microelectronics in the past could be attributed mostly to the reduction of the feature size (progress in lithography), today it relies more on new material solutions, such as SOI, SiGe or SiC. The combination of this trend with continuous miniaturization provides the opportunity of moving into the range of very high frequencies. (...)