Moore’s Law Running Out of Room, Tech Looks for a Successor

by John Markoff,  The New York Times

For decades, the computer industry has been guided by a faith that engineers would always find a way to make the components on computer chips smaller, faster and cheaper. Recently, a global coalition of computer chip manufacturers’ decision to stop relying on Moore’s Law to produce smaller, faster, and less expensive processors may force an industry reconsideration of non-silicon materials or new design concepts.

Chip scientists are nearly at the point where they are manipulating material as small as atoms. When they hit that mark within the next five years or so, they may bump into the boundaries of how tiny semiconductors can become. After that, they may have to look for alternatives to silicon, which is used to make computer chips, or new design ideas in order to make computers more powerful.

It is hard to overstate the importance of Moore’s Law to the entire world. Despite its official sound, it is not actually a scientific rule like Newton’s laws of motion. Instead, it describes the pace of change in a manufacturing process that has made computers exponentially more affordable.

“The end of Moore’s Law is what led to this,” says Georgia Institute of Technology researcher Thomas M. Conte. “Just relying on the semiconductor industry is no longer enough.” The upcoming International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors from the Semiconductor Industry Associations of the U.S., Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan is expected to signify widespread conviction that a rethink is in order.

Meanwhile, IEEE on Wednesday announced a plan to create a new forecasting system, the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems, to track a broader range of computer technologies.

Quantum computing could be one possible alternative, while another is graphene, which could enable smaller and faster transistors that also consume less power than silicon. The eventual end of Moore’s Law was foreseen as early as 2005, when researchers began to fear processors’ heat output was becoming excessive. The cessation of the decline of per-transistor costs of chips–a factor in the swift development of new computer technologies–is another sign the industry thinks signals Moore’s Law is about to end. Read the article in the NYT.