1. Component technology

1.1 Evolution towards nanometric scales

The evolution of component technologies is characterized by the introduction of a new technological "node" every two years, with device dimensions reduced by a factor of around 0.7, resulting in a doubling of integration density. In thirty years, device dimensions have been reduced by a factor of 100, and the number of logic gates per mm ² has been multiplied by a factor of 10,000. The static memory point was implemented in a space of 0.1 mm ² in 2011. After a significant reduction in the 1990s, the power supply to logic gates stabilized at around 1.0 V, while peak current per gate and intrinsic capacitance continued to fall (table