The principal driving force of that revolution is the silicon microchip. These sustained exponential rates of advance are unmatched in technological history. The three key fundamental limits are derived from thermodynamics, quantum mechanics and electromagnetics. Semiconductors impose three critical material limits described by the amount of energy storage required to support a binary switching transition, carrier transit time during the transition and the heat removal capacity of the generic device structure implementing the transition.
Interconnect materials impose a fourth critical material limit.
The four most important device limits are imposed by the switching energy and delay of a transistor and the response time and cross talk of interconnects. The static transfer curve, switching energy and propagation delay time of a binary logic circuit are three inescapable generic circuit limits and the response time of a global interconnect circuit is the final critical circuit limit. System limits are the most numerous, most nebulous and most restrictive limits of the hierarchy. He was senior vice president for academic affairs and provost of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute from 1986 to 1993. He was with Stanford University from 1967 to 1986 as the John M. Fluke professor of electrical engineering, associate dean for research in the School of Engineering, director of the Center for Integrated Systems, director of the Electronics Laboratories and founding director of the Integrated Circuits Laboratory.