Business CPU
End of Moore’s Law (Again) in 10 to 15 Years?
Gordon Moore, the unassuming billionaire co-founder of Intel, says the end of the technology maxim bearing his name is drawing to a close, perhaps as soon as 10 years from now.
“In 1965 Gordon Moore — Intel’s co-founder — predited that the number of transistors on integrated circuits would double every two years. Moore’s Law has been with us for over 40 years, but it seems that the limits of microelectronics are now not that far from us. Moore has predicted the end of his own law in 10 to 15 years, but he predicted that end before, and failed.”
Moore’s Law — based on the San Francisco native’s observation in 1965 that the number of transistors on a computer chip doubles roughly every two years – has for more than 40 years dictated the pace of change in the technology industry.
To be sure, many, including Moore himself, have predicted the law’s demise numerous times before. But, now, as Intel and the rest of the industry have made features on chips so small, they’re running out of space to cram in more transistors and bumping against the laws of physics.
“Another decade, a decade and a half, I think we’ll hit something fairly fundamental” that would render the continuing pace of Moore’s law untenable, Moore said Tuesday at Intel’s twice-annual technical conference, now in its 10th year.
Transistors are the tiny switches that process the ones and zeros that are the foundation of digital computing, and now number in the hundreds of millions on modern microprocessors.
Source: InformationWeek
