Gordon Moorea titan of the technology industry, died Friday at the age of 94. The Intel co-founder became famous for the “Moore’s Law“.
What is Moore’s Law?
Gordon Moore indicated that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit was going to double every two years.
In 1965, Moore estimated that the number of transistors was going to double every year. The then director of research and development at Fairchild Semiconductor gave this prediction for a special issue of the magazine Electronics. In 1975, it adjusted its projection to every two years.
In a 2015 interview, Moore proudly expressed.
“The integrated circuit had been around for a few years. The first ones came out with about 30 on-chip components (transistors, resistors, etc.). I went back to the beginning of the technology I considered fundamental, the flat transistor, and realized that the number of components had doubled every year. And I made a wild extrapolation saying that it was going to continue to double every year for the next 10 years.”
And it turned out to be surprisingly correct. A colleague of mine saw it and christened it as. Moore’s Law. It has been applied to much more than semiconductors. Anything that changes exponentially nowadays is called Moore’s Law. I am pleased to take full credit for it”.
More than a law, it is an observation and projection that has guided the technology industry for decades.
Is Moore’s Law dead?
In 2023, there are discussions in the industry about whether or not the Moore’s Law can be sustained. We are no longer talking about thousands of circuits, but billions.
From Intela company co-founded by Moore, is expected to reach one trillion transistors by 2030, maintaining the trend.
“For the first 40 years, profits came primarily from innovations in our process. In the future, gains will come from innovations in both process and packaging. Our processes will continue to deliver historic density improvements, while our 2D and 3D stacking technologies give architects and designers more tools to increase the number of transistors per device. As we look forward to innovative technologies such as High NA, RibbonFET, PowerVia, Foveros Omni and Direct, and others, we see no end to innovation and, therefore, no end to Moore’s Law,” he says. Intel.
The rival company AMD also plans to have the Moore’s Law is still alive.
“I see exciting new transistor technology for the next six to eight years, and I’m very, very clear about the advances we’re going to make to continue to improve transistor technology, but they’re more expensive,” said Michael Papermaster, chief technical officer of AMD, a The Register in 2022.
In contrast, another semiconductor giant, NVIDIApostulates another reality. In the announcement of its RTX 40 line of cards, Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIAkilled the Moore’s Law.
“The Moore’s Law is dead. A 12-inch wafer is much more expensive today. The idea that the chip is going to come down in price is a story of the past,” Jensen Huang noted in September 2022.
But what did he say Moore? In the 2015 interview, he reflects on how difficult it will be to keep up with his law.
“Making things smaller is getting more and more expensive. Factories to operate in new technology nodes are absurd. It is hard to think that Intel started with a total capital of $3 million. Now you can’t buy a tool, you can’t even install a tool for that amount, I don’t think. Machines have become much more expensive and complex. On the other hand, their productivity in terms of transistors per unit time has increased dramatically. So we can still afford to build some factories to use modern technology.”
