Moore’s Law: The Rule That Really Matters in Tech
Moore’s Law: The Rule That Really Matters in Tech
Year in, year out, Intel executive Mike Mayberry hears the same doomsday prediction: Moore’s Law is going to run out of steam. Sometimes he even hears it from his own co-workers.
But Moore’s Law, named after Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, who 47 years ago predicted a steady, two-year cadence of chip improvements, keeps defying the pessimists because a brigade of materials scientists like Mayberry continue to find ways of stretching today’s silicon transistor technology even as they dig into alternatives. (Such as, for instance, super-thin sheets of carbon graphene.)
Oh, and don’t forget the money that’s driving that hunt for improvement. IDC predicts chip sales will rise from $315 billion this year to $380 billion in 2016. For decades, that revenue has successfully drawn semiconductor research out of academia, through factories, and into chips that have powered everything from a 1960s mainframe to a 2012 iPhone 5.
The result: Moore’s Law has long passed being mere prognostication. It’s the marching order for a vast, well-funded industry with a record of overcoming naysayers’ doubts. Researchers keep finding ways to maintain a tradition that two generations ago would have been science fiction: That computers will continue to get smaller even as they get more powerful.
“If you’re only using the same technology, then in principle you run into limits. The truth is we’ve been modifying the technology every five or seven years for 40 years, and there’s no end in sight for being able to do that,” said Mayberry, vice president of Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group