Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
Microminiaturization is desirable for reasons of lower cost, lower volume and weight, higher performance, and higher reliability. Microminiaturization is best achieved by downscaling the feature sizes on the chip itself, and this indeed continues to be the major driving force in the electronics revolution. It is normally cheaper, weighs less, is faster, and is more reliable to put as much of a system's interconnection effort on the chip itself (i.e., packaging level 0). Costs increase steeply for interconnections on the higher levels.