A Brief History of Moore’s Law
As we all know, computing technology is developed rapidly nowadays. Every year, new types of computer technology are introduced. The speed of computer processor is always increasing and so is the memory capacity. As every company strives to improve their product, we are now living in an era where we could never really buy the latest technology, because after we buy one, the news of more advance technology will spread in a quite short time. Not so long after, the product will be up in the market and our newly bought computer looks already obsolete.
We could see that computer technology evolved in a very fast manner. This kind of development follows a prediction which was made by Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel in 48 years ago. This prediction was made when Electronic Magazine asked him to predict the future development of electronics. He wrote an article “Cramming more components onto integrated circuit” which was published in April 19th, 1965. In his publication, Moore pointed out that the complexity (number of components per integrated circuit) for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two in each year. He also predicted that this trend will remain nearly constant at least for 10 years [1].
Later on, a Caltech professor coined the terms, “Moore’s Law” when he referred to this prediction. The law has been famous since then. In 1975, Moore himself did alter his projection to be ‘a doubling every two years’. A few other predictions derived from this law also emerged as it tried to interpret this law, such as: doubling of transistors per integrated circuit, doubling density at minimum cost per transistor, etc. Up to this moment, this prediction still holds and drives the innovation process in the industry.
A Law that Shapes Human Behavior
Moore’s law is not really a law in a physical sense. Although, it was initially made of a forecast based on a prediction, it never describes how a physical law governs the increasing number of components in an integrated circuit. There is no fundamental law of physics behind it [2].
Since its emergence, many people doubted that this law could survive. There were many times when this law was about to finish. At that moment, many people already said it was the end of the Moore’s law. But then, engineer always seeks a way to overcome this problem. After a technology could not fulfill this law anymore, a new invention was made and it could bring an improvement to break the technological barrier. This pattern, when a barrier was ‘destroyed’ by a new invention, is repeated so many times that it keeps Moore’s Law holds up to this moment.
Another question that may arise is why it should be double and not triple? Why industry does not put more people and more money to make the development at a rate of more than two times every two years? Since there is no physical limitation on it, the only limitation is the market situation itself. And despite the fact that it is not a physical law, Moore’s Law serves as a target for the entire industry. It shapes the perception of both company and consumer.
For companies, they will pour their money for research and development in order to catch up with Moore’s Law prediction. They hope they will be able to compete with each other as everyone knows about Moore’s Law. However, they still hesitate to sell a technology with a performance that surpasses the prediction of Moore’s Law because it will minimize their profit. When technologies always continue to improve, it implies obsolescence. It is possible a technology, which is still working properly, is not used anymore because it is less popular. People simply do not use it because it looks obsolete. This kind of situation is not good for a company to gain maximum profit. So, this law is still alive because it is governed by economic matters.
We can conclude that even though this law is not a real physical law, its prediction is still correct up until now because of the behavior of human beings. It has a two-way interaction with human beings. On one hand, it works as an innovation and market driving-force for the industry. On the other hand, people manage to keep this law holds true by inventing new technology (when current technology cannot catch up with the prediction) and limiting the product development (when actually current technology can surpass the prediction).
The Future of Moore’s Law
In April 2005, an interview with Gordon Moore conveyed that Moore’s Law cannot continue forever [3]. He said that the fundamental barrier of this law is when the size of transistors approaching the size of atoms. This fundamental barrier will eventually terminate Moore’s Law. He also stated that he was not even close to make a new prediction.
Paradigm Evolution (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PPTMooresLawai.jpg)
However, some futurists believe that Moore’s Law will keep continuing. Ray Kurzweil, a futurist, speculates that there will be a new technology which can keep Moore’s Law hold true. As we all knew, the Integrated Circuit which is the main subject of Moore’s Law was not the first paradigm of technology development [4]. It was the fifth paradigm as we already knew about Electromechanical, Relay, Vacuum Tube, and Transistor as previous paradigms. Hence, it is possible that when this paradigm (Integrated Circuit) is obsolete and cannot address the challenge of Moore’s Law, mankind will create a new paradigm to accelerate price-performance ratios.
Epilogue
In conclusion, Moore’s Law serves as a modern prophecy which shapes human psychological behavior on developing computing technology. Although it is not a real physical law, it gives a guideline for research world and industry to innovate and it also governs the economic impact from the research-based technology products. Even though it seems that Moore’s Law will eventually end, the spirit of Moore’s Law will be alive forever. Human will somehow find a way to innovate and keep developing new technologies.
References
[1] Moore, Gordon E. (1965). “Cramming more components onto integrated circuits” (PDF). Electronics Magazine.
[2] http://computer.howstuffworks.com/moores-law.htm
[4] http://news.techworld.com/operating-systems/3477/moores-law-is-dead-says-gordon-moore/
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