Moore’s Law at 50: The Past and Future

by Agam Shah,  IDG News Service

When you’re strapping on the latest smart watch or ogling an iPhone, you probably aren’t thinking of Moore’s Law, which for 50 years has been used as a blueprint to make computers smaller, cheaper and faster.

Without Moore’s Law it’s quite possible that new types of computers like Microsoft’s HoloLens, a holographic wearable with which users can interact with floating images, would not have been developed. For decades, Moore’s Law has been a guiding star for the development of modern electronics, though in recent years its relevance has been subject to debate.

In an article in Electronics Magazine on April 19, 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore first articulated the set of observations and predictions that have come to be known as Moore’s Law. At its core, Moore’s Law predicts that every 18 to 24 months the density of transistors on a given die area will double, significantly increasing computing power.

For decades, Moore’s Law has helped to guide improvements in computing hardware. Intel’s original 4004 processor had 2,300 transistors, while the company’s latest contains billions of transistors.

However, as technology has advanced, experts say it has become clear Moore’s Law will not hold true forever. Moore himself acknowledged as much in a recent interview. Experts say moving forward the sort of gains in computing power and energy efficiency mandated by Moore’s Law are likely to come from the use of new materials and methods, rather than etching more transistors onto each chip.

Intel and others are exploring new semiconductors such as gallium arsenide and indium gallium arsenide. “Moore’s Law is morphing into something that is about new materials,” says Efficient Power Conversion CEO Alex Lidow. “For the first time in 60 years, there are valid candidates where it’s about superior material rather than smaller feature size.”  Read the article