[LINK] Moore's Law is dead, says Gordon Moore

Kim Holburn kim at holburn.net
Mon Nov 13 19:18:02 AEDT 2006


http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=3477

> 13 April 2005
> Moore's Law is dead, says Gordon Moore
>
> By Manek Dubash, Techworld
>
> Gordon Moore
> Moore's Law is dead, according to Gordon Moore, its inventor.
>
> The extrapolation of a trend that was becoming clear even as long  
> ago as 1965, and has been the pulse of the IT industry ever since  
> will eventually end, said Moore, who is now retired from Intel.
>
> Forty years after the publication of his law, which states that  
> transistor density on integrated circuits doubles about every two  
> years, Moore said this morning: "It can't continue forever. The  
> nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually  
> disaster happens.
>
> "In terms of size [of transistor] you can see that we're  
> approaching the size of atoms which is a fundamental barrier, but  
> it'll be two or three generations before we get that far - but  
> that's as far out as we've ever been able to see. We have another  
> 10 to 20 years before we reach a fundamental limit. By then they'll  
> be able to make bigger chips and have transistor budgets in the  
> billions."
>
> As for whether computing have been different without Moore's Law,  
> he said: "It's hard to say - I think it has become a very useful  
> guide. At the start it didn't have much impact, but the first place  
> I saw an impact was when the Japanese entered the memory business.  
> It seemed then that the industry generally was moving in a random  
> direction but once the Japanese got into memory they had a plan and  
> were successful in taking a leading position in that area.
>
> "In that respect, it would have been different if we hadn't noticed  
> that trend. I was lucky as I was just in a position to see things  
> further out than most people, working for Fairchild who were at the  
> forefront of the technology industry."
>
> On the anniversary of the April 1965 Electronics magazine article  
> that made him famous, Moore, who was then head of R&D at  
> electronics giant Fairchild, also said that he didn't believe  
> nanotechnology would supplant electronics anytime soon.
>
> "Integrated circuits were a result of cumulative investment of over  
> $100bn so to replace that, just springing full-blown from a small  
> base, is unlikely. Electronics is a mature industry. And we're  
> already operating well below 100nm which is seen as the start of  
> nanotech so we're there already.
>
> "Building things up from the bottom, atom by atom, comes from a  
> different direction. It's not replacing ICs - the technology is  
> being applied in different fields such as gene chips to do bio- 
> analysis very quickly, micro-machines in airbags and avionics,  
> micro-fluidics - chemical labs on a chip.
>
> "Electronics though is a fundamental technology that's not likely  
> to be replaced directly. There's a difference between making a  
> small machine and connecting them by the billion. Nanotech will  
> have an impact but it's not about replacing electronics in the  
> foreseeable future."
>
> Asked if he foresaw mass market computing, Moore said that he  
> looked back and, "in the original article I did but had no idea  
> what it would look like." He saw home computing as a small market,  
> with applications such as storing recipes in the home. As a result,  
> Intel - where Moore by then worked - didn't pursue that avenue.
>
> Moore also scorned the technology used by the military. He agreed  
> that the military drove advances in computing when costs were very  
> high as it gave them capabilities they couldn't get in any other  
> way, through the 1960s. "Since then it hasn't had much impact as  
> the commercial business timeframe is so much faster than the pace  
> at which military systems change - they use obsolete electronics in  
> modern military systems."
>
> Finally, asked if there were any new laws for next 40 years, he  
> said: "I'll rest on my laurels on this one! I'm not close enough  
> now to make new predictions - several things have been called  
> Moore's Second Law but I can't take credit for any of them."



--
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
Ph: +61 2 61258620 M: +61 417820641  F: +61 2 6230 6121
mailto:kim at holburn.net  aim://kimholburn
skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request
Cacert Root Cert: http://www.cacert.org/cacert.crt
Aust. Spam Act: To stop receiving mail from me: reply and let me know.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD] http://www.saqqara.demon.co.uk/ 
datefmt.htm

Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny.
                           -- Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Analog, Apr 1961






More information about the Link mailing list