Growth of transistor counts for Intel processors (dots) and Moore's law (logarithmic vertical scale)

Moore's law describes an important trend in the history of computer hardware: that the number of transistors that can be inexpensively placed on an integrated circuit is increasing exponentially, doubling approximately every two years. The history of computer hardware encompasses the hardware, its architecture, and its impact on software. In Electronics, a transistor is a Semiconductor device commonly used to amplify or switch electronic signals Microchipsjpg|right|thumb|200px|Microchips ( EPROM memory with a transparent window showing the integrated circuit inside Exponential growth (including Exponential decay) occurs when the growth rate of a mathematical function is proportional to the function's current value ^[1] The observation was first made by Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore in a 1965 paper. Gordon Earle Moore (born 3 January 1929 in San Francisco, California) is the co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of Intel Corporation and the author ^[2][3][4] The trend has continued for more than half a century and is not expected to stop for another decade at least and perhaps much longer. ^[5]

Almost every measure of the capabilities of digital electronic devices is linked to Moore's law: processing speed, memory capacity, even the resolution of digital cameras. All of these are improving at (roughly) exponential rates as well. Exponential growth (including Exponential decay) occurs when the growth rate of a mathematical function is proportional to the function's current value ^[6] This has dramatically increased the usefulness of digital electronics in nearly every segment of the world economy. ^[7] Moore's law describes this driving force of technological and social change in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

History

Moore's original statement that transistor counts had doubled every year can be found in his publication "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits", Electronics Magazine 19 April 1965:

The term "Moore's law" was coined around 1970 by the Caltech professor, VLSI pioneer, and entrepreneur Carver Mead. The California Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Caltech) is a private, Coeducational research university located in Pasadena An entrepreneur is a person who has possession over a company enterprise, or Venture, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome Professor Carver Andress Mead (born 1 May 1934, in Bakersfield California) is a prominent U ^[8][3] Moore may have heard Douglas Engelbart, a co-inventor of today's mechanical computer mouse, discuss the projected downscaling of integrated circuit size in a 1960 lecture. Dr Douglas C Engelbart (born January 30 1925 is an American Inventor. An inventor is a person who creates or discovers a new method form device or other useful means In Computing, a mouse (plural mice, mouse devices, or mouses) ^[9]

In 1975, Moore altered his projection to a doubling every two years. Despite popular misconception, he is adamant that he did not predict a doubling "every 18 months. " However, an Intel colleague had factored in the increasing performance of transistors to conclude that integrated circuits would double in performance every 18 months. ^[10]

In April 2005, Intel offered $10,000 to purchase a copy of the original Electronics Magazine. ^[11] David Clark, an engineer living in the UK, was the first to find a copy and offer it to Intel. ^[12]

Other formulations and similar laws

PC hard disk capacity (in GB). A personal computer ( PC) is any Computer whose original sales price size and capabilities make it useful for individuals and which is intended to be operated A gigabyte (derived from the SI prefix Giga-) is a unit of Information or Computer The plot is logarithmic, so the fitted line corresponds to exponential growth. Definition and base Logarithmic scales are either defined for ratios of the underlying quantity or one has to agree to measure Exponential growth (including Exponential decay) occurs when the growth rate of a mathematical function is proportional to the function's current value

Several measures of digital technology are improving at exponential rates related to Moore's law, including the size, cost, density and speed of components. Note that Moore himself wrote only about the density of components (or transistors) at minimum cost. He noted ^[13]:

Moore's law has been the name given to everything that changes exponentially. I say, if Gore invented the Internet,^[14] I invented the exponential.

Transistors per integrated circuit. The most popular formulation is of the doubling of the number of transistors on integrated circuits every two years. In Electronics, a transistor is a Semiconductor device commonly used to amplify or switch electronic signals Microchipsjpg|right|thumb|200px|Microchips ( EPROM memory with a transparent window showing the integrated circuit inside At the end of the 1970s, Moore's law became known as the limit for the number of transistors on the most complex chips. Recent trends show that this rate has been maintained into 2007.

Density at minimum cost per transistor. This is the formulation given in Moore's 1965 paper. ^[2] It is not about just the density of transistors that can be achieved, but about the density of transistors at which the cost per transistor is the lowest. ^[15] As more transistors are put on a chip, the cost to make each transistor decreases, but the chance that the chip will not work due to a defect increases. In 1965, Moore examined the density of transistors at which cost is minimized, and observed that, as transistors were made smaller through advances in photolithography, this number would increase at "a rate of roughly a factor of two per year". Photolithography (also called optical lithography) is a process used in Microfabrication to selectively remove parts of a thin film (or the bulk of a substrate ^[2]

Cost per transistor. As the size of transistors has decreased, the cost per transistor has decreased as well. However, the manufacturing cost per unit area has only increased over time, since materials and energy expenditures per unit area have only increased with each successive technology node.

Computing performance per unit cost. Also, as the size of transistors shrinks, the speed at which they operate increases. It is also common to cite Moore's law to refer to the rapidly continuing advance in computing performance per unit cost, because increase in transistor count is also a rough measure of computer processing performance. Under the average-cost method, it is assumed that the cost of inventory is based on the average cost of the goods Available for sale during the period On this basis, the performance of computers per unit cost—or more colloquially, "bang per buck"—doubles every 24 months (or, equivalently, increases 32-fold every 10 years).

Power consumption. the power consumption of compute nodes doubles every 18 months. ^[16]

Hard disk storage cost per unit of information. A similar law (sometimes called Kryder's Law) has held for hard disk storage cost per unit of information. Mark Kryder (b Oct 7, 1943 in Portland, Oregon) was Seagate Corp A hard disk drive ( HDD) commonly referred to as a hard drive, hard disk, or fixed disk drive, is a Non-volatile storage device ^[17] The rate of progression in disk storage over the past decades has actually sped up more than once, corresponding to the utilization of error correcting codes, the magnetoresistive effect and the giant magnetoresistive effect. Disk storage is a general category of a Computer storage mechanisms in which data is recorded on planar round and rotating surfaces ( disks, discs, or In Mathematics, Computer science, Telecommunication, and Information theory, error detection and correction has great practical importance in Magnetoresistance is the property of a material to change the value of its Electrical resistance when an external Magnetic field is applied to it Giant magnetoresistance (GMR is a quantum mechanical effect a type of Magnetoresistance effect observed in thin film structures composed of alternating Ferromagnetic The current rate of increase in hard drive capacity is roughly similar to the rate of increase in transistor count. A hard disk drive ( HDD) commonly referred to as a hard drive, hard disk, or fixed disk drive, is a Non-volatile storage device Recent trends show that this rate has been maintained into 2007.

RAM storage capacity. Another version states that RAM storage capacity increases at the same rate as processing power.

Network capacity According to Gerry/Gerald Butters,^[18][19] the former head of Lucent's Optical Networking Group at Bell Labs, there is another version, called Butter's Law of Photonics,^[20] a formulation which deliberately parallels Moore's law. Bell Laboratories (also known as Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) is the Research organization Butter's law^[21] says that the amount of data coming out of an optical fiber is doubling every nine months. Thus, the cost of transmitting a bit over an optical network decreases by half every nine months. The availability of wavelength-division multiplexing (sometimes called "WDM") increased the capacity that could be placed on a single fiber by as much as a factor of 100. In Fiber-optic communications wavelength-division multiplexing ( WDM) is a technology which multiplexes multiple optical carrier signals on a Optical networking and DWDM is rapidly bringing down the cost of networking, and further progress seems assured. In Fiber-optic communications wavelength-division multiplexing ( WDM) is a technology which multiplexes multiple optical carrier signals on a As a result, the wholesale price of data traffic collapsed in the dot-com bubble. The " dot-com bubble " (or sometimes the " IT bubble " was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2001 (with a climax on March 10 Nielsen's Law says that the bandwidth available to users increases by 50% annually. For other people with similar names see Jakob Nielsen. Jakob Nielsen (born 1957 in Copenhagen, Denmark) is a leading ^[22]

Pixels per dollar based on Australian recommended retail price of Kodak digital cameras

Pixels per dollar. Similarly, Barry Hendy of Kodak Australia has plotted the "pixels per dollar" as a basic measure of value for a digital camera, demonstrating the historical linearity (on a log scale) of this market and the opportunity to predict the future trend of digital camera price and resolution.

A self-fulfilling prophecy: industry struggles to keep up with Moore's law

Although Moore's law was initially made in the form of an observation and forecast, the more widely it became accepted, the more it served as a goal for an entire industry. Observation is either an activity of a living being (such as a Human) which senses and assimilates the Knowledge of a Phenomenon, or the recording of data Forecasting is the process of Estimation in unknown situations This drove both marketing and engineering departments of semiconductor manufacturers to focus enormous energy aiming for the specified increase in processing power that it was presumed one or more of their competitors would soon actually attain. In popular usage "marketing" is the promotion of products especially Advertising and Branding However in professional usage the term has a wider meaning of Engineering is the Discipline and Profession of applying technical and scientific Knowledge and A semiconductor' is a Solid material that has Electrical conductivity in between a conductor and an insulator; it can vary over that In this regard, it can be viewed as a self-fulfilling prophecy. A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true For example, the SEMATECH roadmap follows a 24 month cycle. SEMATECH (SEmiconductor MAnufacturing TECHnology is a non-profit consortium that performs Basic research into semiconductor manufacturing

The implications of Moore's law for computer component suppliers are very significant. A computer is a Machine that manipulates data according to a list of instructions. A typical major design project (such as an all-new CPU or hard drive) takes between two and five years to reach production-ready status. In consequence, component manufacturers face enormous timescale pressures—just a few weeks of delay in a major project can spell the difference between great success and massive losses, even bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is a legally declared inability or impairment of ability of an individual or organization to pay their Creditors Creditors may file a bankruptcy petition against Expressed (incorrectly) as "a doubling every 18 months", Moore's law suggests phenomenal progress for technology over the span of a few years. Technology is a broad concept that deals with a Species ' usage and knowledge of Tools and Crafts and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt Expressed on a shorter timescale, however, this equates to an average performance improvement in the industry as a whole of close to 1% per week. Thus, for a manufacturer in the competitive CPU market, a new product that is expected to take three years to develop and turns out just three or four months late is 10 to 15% slower, bulkier, or lower in capacity than the directly competing products, and is close to unsellable. If instead we accept that performance will double every 24 months, rather than every 18, a three to four month delay would translate to 8–11% lower performance.

As the cost of computer power to the consumer falls, the cost for producers to fulfill Moore's law follows an opposite trend: R&D, manufacturing, and test costs have increased steadily with each new generation of chips. Consumers refers to individuals or households that use goods and services generated within the economy. The manufacturing cost per unit area is increasing, but the area occupied by the final product generally does not decrease. IC manufacturers have generally relied on shrinking transistors to improve performance by filling the same chip area with more transistors. This has been best exemplified recently by the simultaneous doubling of the number of cores in a CPU while die size has approximately halved.

Economic impact from rising manufacturing costs

As the cost of semiconductor equipment is expected to continue increasing, manufacturers must sell larger and larger quantities of chips to remain profitable. (The cost to tape-out a chip at 180 nm was roughly US$300,000. In Electronics design, tape-out or tapeout is the final stage of the Design cycle of Integrated circuits or Printed circuit boards The cost to tape-out a chip at 90 nm exceeds US$750,000, and is expected to exceed US$1,000,000 for 65 nm. ) Despite the increasing costs, the final product retail price cannot be expected to increase; generally, they tend to stay within the same price range. As a result, product margins are expected to follow a decreasing trend. In recent years, analysts have observed a decline in the number of "design starts" at advanced process nodes (130 nm and below for 2007). While these observations were made in the period after the 2000 economic downturn, the decline may be evidence that traditional manufacturers in the long-term global market cannot economically sustain Moore's law. The rising Technology has allowed our environment to be characterized as a global one

Future trends

Computer industry technology "road maps' predict (as of 2001) that Moore's law will continue for several chip generations. Depending on the doubling time used in the calculations, this could mean up to a hundredfold increase in transistor count per chip within a decade. The semiconductor industry technology roadmap uses a three-year doubling time for microprocessors, leading to a tenfold increase in the next decade. A microprocessor incorporates most or all of the functions of a Central processing unit (CPU on a single Integrated ^[23] Intel was reported in 2005 as stating that the downsizing of silicon chips with good economics can continue during the next decade^[24] and in 2008 as predicting the trend through 2029. Silicon (ˈsɪlɪkən or /ˈsɪlɪkɒn/ silicium is the Chemical element that has the symbol Si and Atomic number 14 ^[25] In fact, Moore's Law has accelerated in the case of NAND Flash memory, which is used for storage in digital cameras, flash drives, MP3 players, and most recently, solid-state drives (SSDs). Flash memory is non-volatile computer memory that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a Digital audio encoding format using a form of Lossy data compression

The aggressive trend of process design rule shrinks in NAND Flash memory technology effectively accelerates Moore's Law.

Some of the new directions in research that may allow Moore's law to continue are:

• Intel's prediction of increasing use of materials other than silicon was verified in mid-2006, as was its intent of using trigate transistors from around 2009. A multigate device or Multigate Field Effect Transistor ( MuGFET) refers to a MOSFET which incorporates more than one gate into a single device
• Researchers from IBM and Georgia Tech created a new speed record when they ran a silicon/germanium helium supercooled transistor at 500 gigahertz (GHz). International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly known as Georgia Tech, or Tech, is a public, Coeducational Research university in Germanium (dʒɚˈmeɪniəm is a Chemical element with the symbol Ge and Atomic number 32 Helium ( He) is a colorless odorless tasteless non-toxic Inert Monatomic Chemical ^[26] The transistor operated above 500 GHz at 4. 5 K (−451°F/−268. The kelvin (symbol K) is a unit increment of Temperature and is one of the seven SI base units The Kelvin scale is a thermodynamic 65°C)^[27] and simulations showed that it could likely run at 1 THz (1,000 GHz). This trial only tested a single transistor, however. Practical desktop CPUs running at this speed are extremely unlikely using contemporary silicon chip techniques.
• In early 2006, IBM researchers announced that they had developed a technique to print circuitry only 29. International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology 9 nm wide using deep-ultraviolet (DUV, 193-nanometer) optical lithography. Ultraviolet ( UV) light is Electromagnetic radiation with a Wavelength shorter than that of Visible light, but longer than X-rays Photolithography (also called optical lithography) is a process used in Microfabrication to selectively remove parts of a thin film (or the bulk of a substrate IBM claims that this technique may allow chipmakers to use current methods for seven years while continuing to achieve results forecast by Moore's law. New methods that can achieve smaller circuits are expected to be substantially more expensive.
• On January 27, 2007, Intel demonstrated a working 45nm chip codenamed "Penryn", intending mass production to begin in late 2007. Events 98 - Trajan becomes Roman Emperor after the death of Nerva. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Per the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors the 45 nm technology node should refer to the average half-pitch of a memory cell manufactured at around the 2007-2008 time The Core 2 brand refers to a range of Intel 's consumer 64-bit dual-core and 2x2 MCM quad-core CPUs with the X86-64 instruction set ^[28] A decade before then, chips were built using a 500 nm process.
• Companies are working on using nanotechnology to solve the complex engineering problems involved in producing chips at the 32 nm and smaller levels. Nanotechnology, sometimes shortened to nanotech, refers to a field of Applied science whose theme is the control of matter on an Atomic and Molecular (The diameter of a silicon atom is on the order of 0. 2 nm. )
• In April of 2008, researchers at HP Labs announced the creation of a working "memristor": a fourth basic passive circuit element whose existence had previously only been theorized. Memristors /memˈrɪstɚ/ ("memory resistors" are a class of passive two-terminal Circuit elements that maintain a functional relationship between The memristor's unique properties allow for the creation of smaller and better-performing electronic devices. ^[29] This memristor bears some resemblance to resistive memory (CBRAM or RRAM) developed independently and recently by other groups for non-volatile memory applications. The programmable metallization cell, or PMC, is a new form of non-volatile Computer memory being developed at Arizona State University and Resistive random-access memory ( RRAM) is a new Non-volatile memory type being developed by Fujitsu, Sharp, Samsung, Micron

While this time horizon for Moore's law scaling is possible, it does not come without underlying engineering challenges. One of the major challenges in integrated circuits that use nanoscale transistors is increase in parameter variation and leakage currents. The nanoscopic scale usually refers to structures with a Length scale applicible to Nanotechnology, usually cited as 1-100 Nanometers The nanoscopic scale Subthreshold leakage or subthreshold conduction or subthreshold drain current is the current that flows between the source and drain of a MOSFET As a result of variation and leakage, the design margins available to do predictive design are becoming harder. Design is used both as a Noun and a Verb. The term is often tied to the various Applied arts and Engineering (See design disciplines Such systems also dissipate considerable power even when not switching. Adaptive and statistical design along with leakage power reduction is critical to sustain scaling of CMOS. Statistics is a mathematical science pertaining to the collection analysis interpretation or explanation and presentation of Data. Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor ( CMOS) (pronounced "see-moss" siːmɔːs ˈsiːmɒs is a major class of Integrated circuits CMOS technology A good treatment of these topics is covered in Leakage in Nanometer CMOS Technologies. Other scaling challenges include:

1. The ability to control parasitic resistance and capacitance in transistors,
2. The ability to reduce resistance and capacitance in electrical interconnects,
3. The ability to maintain proper transistor electrostatics to allow the gate terminal to control the ON/OFF behavior,
4. Increasing effect of line edge roughness,
5. Dopant fluctuations,
6. System level power delivery,
7. Thermal design to effectively handle the dissipation of delivered power, and
8. Solving all these challenges at an ever-reducing manufacturing cost of the overall system. Electrostatics is the branch of Science that deals with the Phenomena arising from what seems to be stationary Electric charges Since Classical The field-effect transistor (FET is a type of Transistor that relies on an Electric field to control the shape and hence the conductivity of a 'channel' A dopant, also called doping agent and dope, is an impurity element added to a crystal or semiconductor lattice in low concentrations in order to alter the optical/electrical A thermal column (or thermal) is a column of rising Air in the lower altitudes of the Earth's atmosphere.

Ultimate limits of the law

In 1995, the "powerful" DEC Alpha chip (acquired by Compaq, now part of Hewlett-Packard) was made up of approximately nine million transistors. Alpha, originally known as Alpha AXP, was a 64-bit Reduced instruction set computer (RISC Instruction set architecture (ISA developed Compaq Computer Corporation was an American Personal computer company founded in 1982 and is now a brand name of Hewlett-Packard. This 64-bit processor was a technological spearhead at the time, even if the circuit’s market share remained average. Six years later, a state of the art microprocessor would have more than 40 million transistors. In 2015, it is believed that these processors should contain more than 15 billion transistors. Things are becoming smaller each year. If this continues, in theory, in less than 10 years computers will be created where each molecule will have its own place, i. e. we will have completely entered the era of molecular scale production. ^[30]

On April 13, 2005, Gordon Moore himself stated in an interview that the law cannot be sustained indefinitely: "It can't continue forever. Events 1111 - Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. 1204 - The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens" and noted that transistors would eventually reach the limits of miniaturization at atomic levels:

Lawrence Krauss and Glenn D. Lawrence M Krauss (born May 27, 1954) is Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and the Physics Department and Director Starkman announced an ultimate limit of around 600 years in their paper "Universal Limits of Computation", based on rigorous estimation of total information-processing capacity of any system in the Universe. The Universe is defined as everything that Physically Exists: the entirety of Space and Time, all forms of Matter, Energy

Then again, the law has often met obstacles that appeared insurmountable, before soon surmounting them. In that sense, Moore says he now sees his law as more beautiful than he had realized: "Moore's law is a violation of Murphy's law. Murphy's law is an Adage in Western culture that broadly states "if anything can go wrong it will Everything gets better and better. "^[32]

Futurists and Moore's law

Kurzweil expansion of Moore's law from integrated circuits to earlier transistors, vacuum tubes, relays and electromechanical computers. Microchipsjpg|right|thumb|200px|Microchips ( EPROM memory with a transparent window showing the integrated circuit inside In Electronics, a transistor is a Semiconductor device commonly used to amplify or switch electronic signals This article is about the electronic device not an evacuated pipe used for experiments in Free-fall. A relay is an electrical Switch that opens and closes under the control of another Electrical circuit. In Engineering, electromechanics combines the Sciences of Electromagnetism of Electrical engineering and mechanics.

Extrapolation partly based on Moore's law has led futurists such as Vernor Vinge, Bruce Sterling, and Ray Kurzweil to speculate about a technological singularity. In Mathematics, extrapolation is the process of constructing new data points outside a Discrete set of known data points Futurists, or futurologists, are those who speculate about the future Vernor Steffen Vinge (ˈvɪndʒi (born October 2, 1944 in Waukesha Wisconsin, U Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American Science fiction author, best known for his novels and his seminal work on the Mirrorshades Raymond Kurzweil (kɚzwaɪl (born February 12 1948 is an inventor and Futurist. The technological singularity is a theoretical future point of unprecedented technological progress caused in part by the ability of machines to improve themselves using Artificial Kurzweil projects that a continuation of Moore's law until 2019 will result in transistor features just a few atoms in width. Raymond Kurzweil (kɚzwaɪl (born February 12 1948 is an inventor and Futurist. Although this means that the strategy of ever finer photolithography will have run its course, he speculates that this does not mean the end of Moore's law:

Thus, Kurzweil conjectures that it is likely that some new type of technology will replace current integrated-circuit technology, and that Moore's Law will hold true long after 2020. He believes that the exponential growth of Moore's law will continue beyond the use of integrated circuits into technologies that will lead to the technological singularity. Exponential growth (including Exponential decay) occurs when the growth rate of a mathematical function is proportional to the function's current value The technological singularity is a theoretical future point of unprecedented technological progress caused in part by the ability of machines to improve themselves using Artificial The Law of Accelerating Returns described by Ray Kurzweil has in many ways altered the public's perception of Moore's Law. In Futures studies and the History of technology, accelerating change is an increase in the rate of technological (and sometimes social and cultural progress throughout It is a common (but mistaken) belief that Moore's Law makes predictions regarding all forms of technology, when it actually only concerns semiconductor circuits. A semiconductor' is a Solid material that has Electrical conductivity in between a conductor and an insulator; it can vary over that Many futurists still use the term "Moore's law" in this broader sense to describe ideas like those put forth by Kurzweil. Futures Studies, Foresight, or Futurology is the science art and practice of postulating possible probable and preferable futures and the worldviews

Software: breaking the law

A sometimes misunderstood point is that exponentially improved hardware does not necessarily imply exponentially improved software performance to go with it. Hardware is a general term that refers to the physical artifacts of a Technology. The productivity of software developers most assuredly does not increase exponentially with the improvement in hardware, but by most measures has increased only slowly and fitfully over the decades. Software tends to get larger and more complicated over time, and Wirth's law even states humorously that "Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster". Wirth's law in Computing was made popular by Niklaus Wirth in 1995

There are problems where exponential increases in processing power are matched or exceeded by exponential increases in complexity as the problem size increases. (See computational complexity theory and complexity classes P and NP for a somewhat theoretical discussion of such problems, which occur very commonly in applications such as scheduling. Computational complexity theory, as a branch of the Theory of computation in Computer science, investigates the problems related to the amounts of resources The relationship between the Complexity classes P and NP is an unsolved question in Theoretical computer science. Scheduling is a key concept in Computer multitasking and Multiprocessing Operating system design and in Real-time operating system design )

Due to the mathematical power of exponential growth (similar to the financial power of compound interest), seemingly minor fluctuations in the relative growth rates of CPU performance, RAM capacity, and disk space per dollar have caused the relative costs of these three fundamental computing resources to shift markedly over the years, which in turn has caused significant changes in programming styles. For many programming problems, the developer has to decide on numerous time-space tradeoffs, and throughout the history of computing these choices have been strongly influenced by the shifting relative costs of CPU cycles versus storage space.

In addition to processor-usage/storage-space trade-offs, there is often a correlation between development time, application complexity, and application performance. One example of this would be the sorting algorithm bubble sort when compared to the quicksort algorithm. Bubble sort is a simple Sorting algorithm. It works by repeatedly stepping through the list to be sorted comparing two items at a time and Swapping them if they are While a bubble sort is one of the easiest and least complex sorting algorithms to implement, it is also one of the slowest. As processor performance increases, programmers may decide to implement slower and less complex algorithms in favor of a shorter development time.

Other considerations

Not all aspects of computing technology develop in capacities and speed according to Moore's law. Computing is usually defined like the activity of using and developing Computer technology Computer hardware and software. Random Access Memory (RAM) speeds and hard drive seek times improve at best a few percentage points each year. A hard disk drive ( HDD) commonly referred to as a hard drive, hard disk, or fixed disk drive, is a Non-volatile storage device Since the capacity of RAM and hard drives is increasing much faster than is their access speed, intelligent use of their capacity becomes more and more important. It now makes sense in many cases to trade space for time, such as by precomputing indexes and storing them in ways that facilitate rapid access, at the cost of using more disk and memory space: space is getting cheaper relative to time.

Moreover, there is a popular misconception that the clock speed of a processor determines its speed, also known as the Megahertz Myth. The megahertz myth, or less commonly the gigahertz myth, refers to the error of using Clock rate to compare the performance of different Microprocessors This actually also depends on the number of instructions per tick which can be executed (as well as the complexity of each instruction, see MIPS, RISC and CISC), and so the clock speed can only be used for comparison between two identical circuits. Instructions per second (IPS is a measure of a Computer 's processor speed A complex instruction set computer ( CISC, pronounced like " sisk " is a Microprocessor Instruction set architecture (ISA in which Of course, other factors must be taken into consideration such as the bus width and speed of the peripherals. In Computer architecture, a bus is a subsystem that transfers data between computer components inside a Computer or between computers For an account of the words periphery and peripheral as they are used in biology sociology politics computer hardware and other fields see the Therefore, most popular evaluations of "computer speed" are inherently biased, without an understanding of the underlying technology. This was especially true during the Pentium era when popular manufacturers played with public perceptions of speed, focusing on advertising the clock rate of new products. The Pentium brand refers to Intel 's single-core x86 Microprocessor based on the P5 fifth-generation Microarchitecture. ^[34]

Another popular misconception circulating Moore's law is the incorrect assumption that exponential processor transistor growth, as predicted by Moore, translates directly into proportional exponential increase processing power or processing speed. While the increase of transistors in processors usually have an increased effect on processing power or speed, the relationship between the two factors is not proportional. There are cases where a ~45% increase in processor transistors have translated to roughly 10-20% increase in processing power or speed. ^[35] Different processor families have different performance increases when transistor count is increased. More precisely, processor performance or power is more related to other factors such as microarchitecture, and clock speed within the same processor family. In Computer engineering, microarchitecture (sometime abbreviated to µarch or uarch is a description of the Electrical circuitry of a Computer, Central That is to say, processor performance can increase without increasing the number of transistors in a processor. (AMD64 processors had better overall performance compared to the late Pentium 4 series, which had more transistors). The Athlon 64 is an eighth-generation AMD64 architecture Microprocessor produced by AMD, released on The Pentium 4 brand refers to Intel 's line of single- core mainstream desktop and Laptop Central processing units (CPUs introduced ^[36]

It is also important to note that transistor density in multi-core CPUs does not necessarily reflect a similar increase in practical computing power, due to the unparallelised nature of most applications. Transistor count is the most common measure of chip complexity A multi-core processor (or chip-level multiprocessor, CMP) combines two or more independent cores into a single package composed of a single Integrated

See also

References and notes

Further reading

Understanding Moore's Law: Four Decades of Innovation. Edited by David C. Brock. x + 122 pp. Chemical Heritage Press, 2006. $12. 50. Review at American Scientist

External links

Articles

• Intel's information page on Moore's Law – With link to Moore's original 1965 paper
• Intel press kit released for Moore's Law's 40th anniversary, with a 1965 sketch by Moore
• The Lives and Death of Moore's Law – By Ilkka Tuomi; a detailed study on Moore's Law and its historical evolution and its criticism by Kurzweil. Ilkka Tuomi ( 26 September 1958 &mdash a native of Finland, is noted for writings on the subject of the Internet.
• Moore says nanoelectronics face tough challenges – By Michael Kanellos, CNET News. com, 9 March 2005
• Moore's Law – Blog and news; Moore's Law graph showing estimated end time, other related graphics
• It's Moore's Law, But Another Had The Idea First by John Markoff
• Gordon Moore reflects on his eponymous law Interview with W. Events 590 - Bahram Chobin is crowned as king Barham VI of Persia. Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. John Markoff (born October 24, 1949) is a Journalist best known for his work at the The New York Times, and a book and series of articles Wayt Gibbs in Scientific American
• Law that has driven digital life: The Impact of Moore's Law – A comprehensive BBC News article, 18 April 2005
• No More Moore's Law? - BBC News article, 22 July 2004
• IBM Research Demonstrates Path for Extending Current Chip-Making Technique – Press release from IBM on new technique for creating line patterns, 20 February 2006
• Understanding Moore's Law By Jon Hannibal Stokes 20 February 2003
• The Technical Impact of Moore's Law IEEE solid-state circuits society newsletter; September 2006
• MIT Technology Review article: Novel Chip Architecture Could Extend Moore's Law
• Moore's Law seen extended in chip breakthrough
• Intel Says Chips Will Run Faster, Using Less Power
• A ZDNet article detailing the limits

Data

• Intel (IA-32) CPU Speeds since 1994. Scientific American is a Popular science magazine, published (first weekly and later monthly since August 28, 1845, making it Events 1025 - Bolesław Chrobry is crowned in Gniezno, becoming the first King of Poland. Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1099 - First Crusade: Godfrey of Bouillon is elected the first Defender of the Holy Sepulchre of The Kingdom of "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Events 1472 - Orkney and Shetland are left by Norway to Scotland, due to a Dowry payment Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1472 - Orkney and Shetland are left by Norway to Scotland, due to a Dowry payment Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. Speed increases in recent years have seemed to slow down with regard to percentage increase per year (available in PDF or PNG format).
• A case for PC upgrade, 2002-2007.

FAQs

• A C|net FAQ about Moore's Law