On April 19th, Gordon E. Moore, a young electrical engineer from California who worked for 'Fairchild Semiconductor' in Mountain View, published a paper that has been the inspiration behind the eye-blinding evolution of the computing industry. Contrary to the popular belief that the original paper talked about the number of transistors installed on an Integrated Circuit will double every two years; it wasn't until 1975 that this idea actually emerged. At the best, we can say that the 1965 paper gave rise to the concept of Moore's Law.
The original paper talks about the relation between manufacturing costs per component and the number of components per integrated circuit. Moore looked at what his company was working on and while the chips being shipped had about 8 components, he knew that FairChild engineers were already working on chips with 16, 30 and even 60 components per IC.
Moore's prediction has largely held up for decades. The roots of the electronics industry are in Chemistry; and Moore himself has a PhD in Chemistry. Moore explains that the innovations in material formation has lead to unimaginable progress. The computing industry has seen growth not only in the transistor density, but also with the semiconductor manufacturing progress. In Moore's times, a 2" silicon wafer was 'top-end' and today's engineers are already working on 18" versions. The overall result is that the cost of creating transistors has been reduced by 1 billion times. Moore notes that the number of transistors existing on planet Earth has already surpassed the number of ants and is already the highest-volume product in the entire history of humans.
Moore's law, however, may not hold true as the industry hits the physical limits. The 14 nm Chips (Intel Broadwell) are already hitting the edge and with components so close, the heat escaping has become a problem. The chip manufacturers are now working on new materials and techniques like quantum tunneling to keep up with Moore's law.
Do let us know your views. We look forward to your participation in following relevant discussions on CrazyEngineers:
Source: ExtremeTech
The original paper talks about the relation between manufacturing costs per component and the number of components per integrated circuit. Moore looked at what his company was working on and while the chips being shipped had about 8 components, he knew that FairChild engineers were already working on chips with 16, 30 and even 60 components per IC.
Moore's prediction has largely held up for decades. The roots of the electronics industry are in Chemistry; and Moore himself has a PhD in Chemistry. Moore explains that the innovations in material formation has lead to unimaginable progress. The computing industry has seen growth not only in the transistor density, but also with the semiconductor manufacturing progress. In Moore's times, a 2" silicon wafer was 'top-end' and today's engineers are already working on 18" versions. The overall result is that the cost of creating transistors has been reduced by 1 billion times. Moore notes that the number of transistors existing on planet Earth has already surpassed the number of ants and is already the highest-volume product in the entire history of humans.
Moore's law, however, may not hold true as the industry hits the physical limits. The 14 nm Chips (Intel Broadwell) are already hitting the edge and with components so close, the heat escaping has become a problem. The chip manufacturers are now working on new materials and techniques like quantum tunneling to keep up with Moore's law.
Do let us know your views. We look forward to your participation in following relevant discussions on CrazyEngineers:
- Is there a limit to Moore's Law?
- Electronics Development and Moore's Law
- Is it necessary to keep up with Moore's Law?
Source: ExtremeTech
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