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Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense
integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
(IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an
observation Observation is the active acquisition of information from a primary source. In living beings, observation employs the senses. In science, observation can also involve the perception and recording of data via the use of scientific instruments. The ...
and
projection Projection, projections or projective may refer to: Physics * Projection (physics), the action/process of light, heat, or sound reflecting from a surface to another in a different direction * The display of images by a projector Optics, graphic ...
of a historical trend. Rather than a law of physics, it is an empirical relationship linked to gains from experience in production. The observation is named after
Gordon Moore Gordon Earle Moore (born January 3, 1929) is an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corporation. He is also the original proponent of Moore's law. As of March 2021, Moore's net worth is repor ...
, the co-founder of
Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, it became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of int ...
and
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
(and former CEO of the latter), who in 1965 posited a doubling every year in the number of components per integrated circuit, and projected this rate of growth would continue for at least another decade. In 1975, looking forward to the next decade, he revised the forecast to doubling every two years, a
compound annual growth rate Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is a business and investing specific term for the geometric progression ratio that provides a constant rate of return over the time period. CAGR is not an accounting term, but it is often used to describe some ele ...
(CAGR) of 41%. While Moore did not use empirical evidence in forecasting that the historical trend would continue, his prediction held since 1975 and has since become known as a "law". Moore's prediction has been used in the
semiconductor industry The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. It formed around 1960, once the fabrication of semiconduct ...
to guide long-term planning and to set targets for
research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...
, thus functioning to some extent as a
self-fulfilling prophecy A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true at least in part as a result of a person's or group of persons' belief or expectation that said prediction would come true. This suggests that people's beliefs influence their actions. ...
. Advancements in
digital electronics Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. This is in contrast to analog electronics and analog signals. Digital electronic circuits are usual ...
, such as the reduction in quality-adjusted
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...
prices, the increase in
memory capacity Computer data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers. The central processing unit (CPU) of a computer ...
(
RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...
and
flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid ...
), the improvement of
sensors A sensor is a device that produces an output signal for the purpose of sensing a physical phenomenon. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, machine, or subsystem that detects events or changes in its environment and sends ...
, and even the number and size of
pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the smal ...
s in
digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile device ...
s, are strongly linked to Moore's law. These ongoing changes in digital electronics have been a driving force of technological and social change,
productivity Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...
, and economic growth. Industry experts have not reached a consensus on exactly when Moore's law will cease to apply. Microprocessor architects report that semiconductor advancement has slowed industry-wide since around 2010, slightly below the pace predicted by Moore's law.


History

In 1959,
Douglas Engelbart Douglas Carl Engelbart (January 30, 1925 – July 2, 2013) was an American engineer and inventor, and an early computer and Internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on founding the field of human–computer interaction, particularly ...
studied the projected downscaling of
integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
(IC) size, publishing his results in the article "Microelectronics, and the Art of Similitude". Engelbart presented his findings at the 1960
International Solid-State Circuits Conference International Solid-State Circuits Conference is a global forum for presentation of advances in solid-state circuits and Systems-on-a-Chip. The conference is held every year in February at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis in downtown San Fr ...
, where Moore was present in the audience. In 1965, Gordon Moore, who at the time was working as the director of research and development at
Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, it became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of int ...
, was asked to contribute to the thirty-fifth anniversary issue of ''
Electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
'' magazine with a prediction on the future of the semiconductor components industry over the next ten years. His response was a brief article entitled "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits". Within his editorial, he speculated that by 1975 it would be possible to contain as many as 65,000 components on a single quarter-square-inch (~1.6 square-centimeter) semiconductor.
The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year. Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase. Over the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncertain, although there is no reason to believe it will not remain nearly constant for at least 10 years.
Moore posited a log-linear relationship between device complexity (higher circuit density at reduced cost) and time. In a 2015 interview, Moore noted of the 1965 article: "...I just did a wild extrapolation saying it’s going to continue to double every year for the next 10 years." One historian of the law cites
Stigler's law of eponymy Stigler's law of eponymy, proposed by University of Chicago statistics professor Stephen Stigler in his 1980 publication ''Stigler’s law of eponymy'', states that no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. Examples include ...
, to introduce the fact that the regular doubling of components was known to many working in the field. In 1974,
Robert H. Dennard Robert Heath Dennard (born September 5, 1932) is an American electrical engineer and inventor. Biography Dennard was born in Terrell, Texas, U.S. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist University, ...
at IBM recognized the rapid MOSFET scaling technology and formulated what became known as
Dennard scaling Dennard scaling, also known as MOSFET scaling, is a scaling law which states roughly that, as transistors get smaller, their power density stays constant, so that the power use stays in proportion with area; both voltage and current scale (downward) ...
, which describes that as MOS transistors get smaller, their
power density Power density is the amount of power (time rate of energy transfer) per unit volume. In energy transformers including batteries, fuel cells, motors, power supply units etc., power density refers to a volume, where it is often called volume p ...
stays constant such that the power use remains in proportion with area. Evidence from the semiconductor industry shows that this inverse relationship between power density and areal density broke down in the mid-2000s. At the 1975
IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting The IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) is an annual micro- and nanoelectronics conference held each December that serves as a forum for reporting technological breakthroughs in the areas of semiconductor and related device technologi ...
, Moore revised his forecast rate, predicting semiconductor complexity would continue to double annually until about 1980, after which it would decrease to a rate of doubling approximately every two years. He outlined several contributing factors for this exponential behavior: * The advent of
metal–oxide–semiconductor The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
(MOS) technology * The exponential rate of increase in die sizes, coupled with a decrease in defective densities, with the result that semiconductor manufacturers could work with larger areas without losing reduction yields * Finer minimum dimensions * What Moore called "circuit and device cleverness" Shortly after 1975,
Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
professor
Carver Mead Carver Andress Mead (born May 1, 1934) is an American scientist and engineer. He currently holds the position of Gordon and Betty Moore Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Applied Science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), ...
popularized the term "Moore's law".in reference to
Gordon E. Moore Gordon Earle Moore (born January 3, 1929) is an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corporation. He is also the original proponent of Moore's law. As of March 2021, Moore's net worth is report ...
's statements at the IEEE.
Moore's law eventually came to be widely accepted as a goal for the semiconductor industry, and it was cited by competitive semiconductor manufacturers as they strove to increase processing power. Moore viewed his eponymous law as surprising and optimistic: "Moore's law is a violation of Murphy's law. Everything gets better and better." The observation was even seen as a
self-fulfilling prophecy A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true at least in part as a result of a person's or group of persons' belief or expectation that said prediction would come true. This suggests that people's beliefs influence their actions. ...
. The doubling period is often misquoted as 18 months because of a prediction by Moore's colleague, Intel executive David House. In 1975, House noted that Moore's revised law of doubling transistor count every 2 years in turn implied that computer chip performance would roughly double every 18 months (with no increase in power consumption). Mathematically, Moore's Law predicted that transistor count would double every 2 years due to shrinking transistor dimensions and other improvements. As a consequence of shrinking dimensions, Dennard scaling predicted that power consumption per unit area would remain constant. Combining these effects, David House deduced that computer chip performance would roughly double every 18 months. Also due to Dennard scaling, this increased performance would not be accompanied by increased power, i.e., the energy-efficiency of
silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic tab ...
-based computer chips roughly doubles every 18 months. Dennard scaling ended in the 2000s. Koomey later showed that a similar rate of efficiency improvement predated silicon chips and Moore's Law, for technologies such as vacuum tubes. Microprocessor architects report that since around 2010, semiconductor advancement has slowed industry-wide below the pace predicted by Moore's law.
Brian Krzanich Brian Matthew Krzanich (born May 9, 1960) is an American engineer and Krzanich joined Intel as an engineer in 1982 and served as chief operating officer (COO) before being promoted to CEO in May 2013. As CEO, Krzanich was credited for diversifyin ...
, the former CEO of Intel, cited Moore's 1975 revision as a precedent for the current deceleration, which results from technical challenges and is "a natural part of the history of Moore's law". The rate of improvement in physical dimensions known as Dennard scaling also ended in the mid-2000s. As a result, much of the semiconductor industry has shifted its focus to the needs of major computing applications rather than semiconductor scaling. Nevertheless, leading semiconductor manufacturers
TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC; also called Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational corporation, multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the world's most valuable semicon ...
and
Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational corporation, multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of ...
have claimed to keep pace with Moore's law with 10 nm and
7 nm In semiconductor manufacturing, the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors defines the 7  nm process as the MOSFET technology node following the 10 nm node. It is based on FinFET (fin field-effect transistor) technology, ...
nodes in mass production and 5 nm nodes in risk production .


Moore's second law

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. Rising manufacturing costs are an important consideration for the sustaining of Moore's law. This led to the formulation of
Moore's second law Rock's law or Moore's second law, named for Arthur Rock or Gordon Moore, says that the cost of a semiconductor chip fabrication plant doubles every four years. As of 2015, the price had already reached about 14 billion US dollars. Rock's law can b ...
, also called Rock's law, which is that the
capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
cost of a
semiconductor fabrication plant In the microelectronics industry, a semiconductor fabrication plant (commonly called a fab; sometimes foundry) is a factory where devices such as integrated circuits are manufactured. Fabs require many expensive devices to function. Estimates ...
also increases exponentially over time.


Major enabling factors

Numerous innovations by scientists and engineers have sustained Moore's law since the beginning of the IC era. Some of the key innovations are listed below, as examples of breakthroughs that have advanced integrated circuit and
semiconductor device fabrication Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuit (IC) chips such as modern computer processors, microcontrollers, and memory chips such as NAND flash and DRAM that are pres ...
technology, allowing
transistor count The transistor count is the number of transistors in an electronic device (typically on a single substrate or "chip"). It is the most common measure of integrated circuit complexity (although the majority of transistors in modern microprocessors ...
s to grow by more than seven orders of magnitude in less than five decades. *
Integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
(IC) The ''raison d'être'' for Moore's law. The
germanium Germanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white and similar in appearance to silicon. It is a metalloid in the carbon group that is chemically similar to its group neighbors s ...
hybrid IC was invented by
Jack Kilby Jack St. Clair Kilby (November 8, 1923 – June 20, 2005) was an American electrical engineer who took part (along with Robert Noyce of Fairchild) in the realization of the first integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments (TI) in 1 ...
at
Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...
in 1958, followed by the invention of the
silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic tab ...
monolithic IC chip by Robert Noyce at
Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, it became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of int ...
in 1959. *
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFE ...
(CMOS) The CMOS process was invented by Chih-Tang Sah and
Frank Wanlass Frank Marion Wanlass (May 17, 1933 in Thatcher, AZ – September 9, 2010 in Santa Clara, California) was an American electrical engineer. He is best known for inventing CMOS (complementary MOS) logic with Chih-Tang Sah in 1963. CMOS has since ...
at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1963. *
Dynamic random-access memory Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal-oxide ...
(DRAM) DRAM was developed by
Robert H. Dennard Robert Heath Dennard (born September 5, 1932) is an American electrical engineer and inventor. Biography Dennard was born in Terrell, Texas, U.S. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist University, ...
at IBM in 1967. * Chemically-amplified photoresist Invented by Hiroshi Ito, C. Grant Willson and J. M. J. Fréchet at IBM ''circa'' 1980, which was 5–10 times more sensitive to ultraviolet light. IBM introduced chemically amplified photoresist for DRAM production in the mid-1980s. * Deep UV excimer laser
photolithography In integrated circuit manufacturing, photolithography or optical lithography is a general term used for techniques that use light to produce minutely patterned thin films of suitable materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, to protect ...
Invented by Kanti Jain at IBM ''circa'' 1980.Jain, K. "Excimer Laser Lithography", SPIE Press, Bellingham, WA, 1990. Prior to this,
excimer laser An excimer laser, sometimes more correctly called an exciplex laser, is a form of ultraviolet laser which is commonly used in the production of microelectronic devices, semiconductor based integrated circuits or "chips", eye surgery, and microm ...
s had been mainly used as research devices since their development in the 1970s. From a broader scientific perspective, the invention of excimer laser lithography has been highlighted as one of the major milestones in the 50-year history of the laser. *
Interconnect In telecommunications, interconnection is the physical linking of a carrier's network with equipment or facilities not belonging to that network. The term may refer to a connection between a carrier's facilities and the equipment belonging to ...
innovations Interconnect innovations of the late 1990s, including chemical-mechanical polishing or chemical mechanical planarization (CMP), trench isolation, and copper interconnects—although not directly a factor in creating smaller transistors—have enabled improved
wafer A wafer is a crisp, often sweet, very thin, flat, light and dry biscuit, often used to decorate ice cream, and also used as a garnish on some sweet dishes. Wafers can also be made into cookies with cream flavoring sandwiched between them. They ...
yield, additional layers of metal wires, closer spacing of devices, and lower electrical resistance. "Table1: 1990 enabling multilevel metallization; 1995 enabling STI compact isolation, polysilicon patterning and yield / defect reduction" Computer industry technology road maps predicted in 2001 that Moore's law would continue for several generations of semiconductor chips.


Recent trends

One of the key challenges of engineering future
nanoscale The nanoscopic scale (or nanoscale) usually refers to structures with a length scale applicable to nanotechnology, usually cited as 1–100 nanometers (nm). A nanometer is a billionth of a meter. The nanoscopic scale is (roughly speaking) a lo ...
transistors is the design of gates. As device dimension shrinks, controlling the current flow in the thin channel becomes more difficult. Modern nanoscale transistors typically take the form of multi-gate MOSFETs, with the
FinFET A fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) is a multigate device, a MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor) built on a substrate where the gate is placed on two, three, or four sides of the channel or wrapped around the channel, f ...
being the most common nanoscale transistor. The FinFET has gate dielectric on three sides of the channel. In comparison, the
gate-all-around A multigate device, multi-gate MOSFET or multi-gate field-effect transistor (MuGFET) refers to a metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) that has more than one gate on a single transistor. The multiple gates may be control ...
MOSFET (
GAAFET A multigate device, multi-gate MOSFET or multi-gate field-effect transistor (MuGFET) refers to a metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) that has more than one gate on a single transistor. The multiple gates may be contro ...
) structure has even better gate control. * A
gate-all-around A multigate device, multi-gate MOSFET or multi-gate field-effect transistor (MuGFET) refers to a metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) that has more than one gate on a single transistor. The multiple gates may be control ...
MOSFET (GAAFET) was first demonstrated in 1988, by a
Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure system ...
research team led by
Fujio Masuoka is a Japanese engineer, who has worked for Toshiba and Tohoku University, and is currently chief technical officer (CTO) of Unisantis Electronics. He is best known as the inventor of flash memory, including the development of both the NOR flash ...
, who demonstrated a vertical nanowire GAAFET which he called a "surrounding gate transistor" (SGT). Masuoka, best known as the inventor of
flash memory Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both us ...
, later left Toshiba and founded Unisantis Electronics in 2004 to research surrounding-gate technology along with
Tohoku University , or is a Japanese national university located in Sendai, Miyagi in the Tōhoku Region, Japan. It is informally referred to as . Established in 1907, it was the third Imperial University in Japan and among the first three Designated National ...
. * In 2006, a team of Korean researchers from the
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is a national research university located in Daedeok Innopolis, Daejeon, South Korea. KAIST was established by the Korean government in 1971 as the nation's first public, researc ...
(KAIST) and the National Nano Fab Center developed a 3 nm transistor, the world's smallest
nanoelectronic Nanoelectronics refers to the use of nanotechnology in electronic components. The term covers a diverse set of devices and materials, with the common characteristic that they are so small that inter-atomic interactions and quantum mechanical pr ...
device at time, based on FinFET technology. * In 2010, researchers at the Tyndall National Institute in Cork, Ireland announced a junctionless transistor. A control gate wrapped around a silicon nanowire can control the passage of electrons without the use of junctions or doping. They claim these may be produced at 10-nm scale using existing fabrication techniques. * In 2011, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh announced the development of a single-electron transistor, 1.5 nm in diameter, made out of oxide-based materials. Three "wires" converge on a central "island" that can house one or two electrons. Electrons tunnel from one wire to another through the island. Conditions on the third wire result in distinct conductive properties including the ability of the transistor to act as a solid state memory. Nanowire transistors could spur the creation of microscopic computers. * In 2012, a research team at the
University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive ...
announced the development of the first working transistor consisting of a single atom placed precisely in a silicon crystal (not just picked from a large sample of random transistors). Moore's law predicted this milestone to be reached for ICs in the lab by 2020. * In 2015, IBM demonstrated
7 nm In semiconductor manufacturing, the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors defines the 7  nm process as the MOSFET technology node following the 10 nm node. It is based on FinFET (fin field-effect transistor) technology, ...
node chips with silicon-germanium transistors produced using EUVL. The company believes this transistor density would be four times that of current 14 nm chips. * Samsung and TSMC plan to manufacture 3nm GAAFET nodes by 20212022. Note that node names, such as 3nm, have no relation to the physical size of device elements (transistors). * A
Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure system ...
research team including T. Imoto, M. Matsui and C. Takubo developed a "System Block Module" wafer bonding process for manufacturing
three-dimensional integrated circuit A three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D IC) is a MOS (metal-oxide semiconductor) integrated circuit (IC) manufactured by stacking as many as 16 or more ICs and interconnecting them vertically using, for instance, through-silicon vias (TSVs) or ...
(3D IC) packages in 2001. In April 2007, Toshiba introduced an eight-layer 3D IC, the 16 GB THGAM embedded
NAND flash Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...
memory chip which was manufactured with eight stacked 2GB NAND flash chips. In September 2007,
Hynix SK hynix Inc. is a South Korean supplier of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips and flash memory chips. Hynix is the world's second-largest memory chipmaker (after Samsung Electronics) and the world's third-largest semiconductor company. ...
introduced 24-layer 3D IC, a 16GB flash memory chip that was manufactured with 24 stacked NAND flash chips using a wafer bonding process. *
V-NAND Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both us ...
, also known as 3D NAND, allows flash memory cells to be stacked vertically using
charge trap flash Charge trap flash (CTF) is a semiconductor memory technology used in creating non-volatile NOR and NAND flash memory. It is a type of floating-gate MOSFET memory technology, but differs from the conventional floating-gate technology in that it use ...
technology originally presented by John Szedon in 1967, significantly increasing the number of transistors on a flash memory chip. 3D NAND was first announced by Toshiba in 2007. V-NAND was first commercially manufactured by
Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational corporation, multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of ...
in 2013. * In 2008, researchers at HP Labs announced a working
memristor A memristor (; a portmanteau of ''memory resistor'') is a non-linear two-terminal electrical component relating electric charge and magnetic flux linkage. It was described and named in 1971 by Leon Chua, completing a theoretical quartet of fu ...
, a fourth basic passive circuit element whose existence only had been theorized previously. The memristor's unique properties permit the creation of smaller and better-performing electronic devices. * In 2014, bioengineers at
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
developed a circuit modeled on the human brain. Sixteen "Neurocore" chips simulate one million neurons and billions of synaptic connections, claimed to be 9,000 times faster as well as more energy efficient than a typical PC. * In 2015, Intel and
Micron The micrometre ( international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: μm) or micrometer (American spelling), also commonly known as a micron, is a unit of length in the International System of Unit ...
announced 3D XPoint, a
non-volatile memory Non-volatile memory (NVM) or non-volatile storage is a type of computer memory that can retain stored information even after power is removed. In contrast, volatile memory needs constant power in order to retain data. Non-volatile memory typic ...
claimed to be significantly faster with similar density compared to NAND. Production scheduled to begin in 2016 was delayed until the second half of 2017. * In 2017, Samsung combined its V-NAND technology with eUFS 3D IC stacking to produce a 512GB flash memory chip, with eight stacked 64-layer V-NAND dies. In 2019, Samsung produced a 1 TB flash chip with eight stacked 96-layer V-NAND dies, along with quad-level cell (QLC) technology (
4-bit In computer architecture, 4-bit integers, or other data units are those that are 4 bits wide. Also, 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers, or data buses of that si ...
per transistor), equivalent to 2trillion transistors, the highest
transistor count The transistor count is the number of transistors in an electronic device (typically on a single substrate or "chip"). It is the most common measure of integrated circuit complexity (although the majority of transistors in modern microprocessors ...
of any IC chip. * In 2020,
Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational corporation, multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of ...
plans to produce the 5 nm node, using FinFET and
EUV Extreme ultraviolet radiation (EUV or XUV) or high- energy ultraviolet radiation is electromagnetic radiation in the part of the electromagnetic spectrum spanning wavelengths from 124  nm down to 10 nm, and therefore (by the Planck ...
technology. * In May 2021, IBM announces the creation of the first 2 nm computer chip, with parts supposedly being smaller than human DNA. Microprocessor architects report that semiconductor advancement has slowed industry-wide since around 2010, below the pace predicted by Moore's law. Brian Krzanich, the former CEO of Intel, announced, "Our cadence today is closer to two and a half years than two." Intel stated in 2015 that improvements in MOSFET devices have slowed, starting at the 22 nm feature width around 2012, and continuing at 14 nm. The physical limits to transistor scaling have been reached due to source-to-drain leakage, limited gate metals and limited options for channel material. Other approaches are being investigated, which do not rely on physical scaling. These include the spin state of electron
spintronics Spintronics (a portmanteau meaning spin transport electronics), also known as spin electronics, is the study of the intrinsic spin of the electron and its associated magnetic moment, in addition to its fundamental electronic charge, in solid-st ...
,
tunnel junction In electronics/spintronics, a tunnel junction is a barrier, such as a thin insulating layer or electric potential, between two electrically conducting materials. Electrons (or quasiparticles) pass through the barrier by the process of quantum tunn ...
s, and advanced confinement of channel materials via nano-wire geometry. Spin-based logic and memory options are being developed actively in labs.


Alternative materials research

The vast majority of current transistors on ICs are composed principally of doped silicon and its alloys. As silicon is fabricated into single nanometer transistors,
short-channel effect In electronics, short-channel effects occur in MOSFETs in which the channel length is comparable to the depletion layer widths of the source and drain junctions. These effects include, in particular, drain-induced barrier lowering, velocity satur ...
s adversely change desired material properties of silicon as a functional transistor. Below are several non-silicon substitutes in the fabrication of small nanometer transistors. One proposed material is
indium gallium arsenide Indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) (alternatively gallium indium arsenide, GaInAs) is a ternary alloy (chemical compound) of indium arsenide (InAs) and gallium arsenide (GaAs). Indium and gallium are ( group III) elements of the periodic table wh ...
, or InGaAs. Compared to their silicon and germanium counterparts, InGaAs transistors are more promising for future high-speed, low-power logic applications. Because of intrinsic characteristics of III-V compound semiconductors, quantum well and
tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...
effect transistors based on InGaAs have been proposed as alternatives to more traditional MOSFET designs. * In the early 2000s, the atomic layer deposition high-κ
film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
and pitch double-patterning processes were invented by Gurtej Singh Sandhu at
Micron Technology Micron Technology, Inc. is an American producer of computer memory and computer data storage including dynamic random-access memory, flash memory, and USB flash drives. It is headquartered in Boise, Idaho. Its consumer products, including ...
, extending Moore's law for planar CMOS technology to 30 nm class and smaller. * In 2009, Intel announced the development of 80-nm InGaAs
quantum well A quantum well is a potential well with only discrete energy values. The classic model used to demonstrate a quantum well is to confine particles, which were initially free to move in three dimensions, to two dimensions, by forcing them to occupy ...
transistors. Quantum well devices contain a material sandwiched between two layers of material with a wider band gap. Despite being double the size of leading pure silicon transistors at the time, the company reported that they performed equally as well while consuming less power. * In 2011, researchers at Intel demonstrated 3-D
tri-gate A multigate device, multi-gate MOSFET or multi-gate field-effect transistor (MuGFET) refers to a metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) that has more than one gate on a single transistor. The multiple gates may be contro ...
InGaAs transistors with improved leakage characteristics compared to traditional planar designs. The company claims that their design achieved the best electrostatics of any III-V compound semiconductor transistor. At the 2015
International Solid-State Circuits Conference International Solid-State Circuits Conference is a global forum for presentation of advances in solid-state circuits and Systems-on-a-Chip. The conference is held every year in February at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis in downtown San Fr ...
, Intel mentioned the use of III-V compounds based on such an architecture for their 7 nm node. * In 2011, researchers at the
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
developed an InGaAs tunneling field-effect transistors capable of higher operating currents than previous designs. The first III-V TFET designs were demonstrated in 2009 by a joint team from
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
and
Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...
. * In 2012, a team in MIT's Microsystems Technology Laboratories developed a 22 nm transistor based on InGaAs which, at the time, was the smallest non-silicon transistor ever built. The team used techniques currently used in silicon device fabrication and aims for better electrical performance and a reduction to 10-nanometer scale.
Biological computing Biological computers use biologically derived molecules — such as DNA and/or proteins — to perform digital or real computations. The development of biocomputers has been made possible by the expanding new science of nanobiotechnology. The ter ...
research shows that biological material has superior information density and energy efficiency compared to silicon-based computing. Various forms of
graphene Graphene () is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure.
are being studied for graphene electronics, e.g.
graphene nanoribbon Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs, also called nano-graphene ribbons or nano-graphite ribbons) are strips of graphene with width less than 100 nm. Graphene ribbons were introduced as a theoretical model by Mitsutaka Fujita and coauthors to examine ...
transistors upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...
have shown great promise since its appearance in publications in 2008. (Bulk graphene has a
band gap In solid-state physics, a band gap, also called an energy gap, is an energy range in a solid where no electronic states can exist. In graphs of the electronic band structure of solids, the band gap generally refers to the energy difference (in ...
of zero and thus cannot be used in transistors because of its constant conductivity, an inability to turn off. The zigzag edges of the nanoribbons introduce localized energy states in the conduction and valence bands and thus a bandgap that enables switching when fabricated as a transistor. As an example, a typical GNR of width of 10 nm has a desirable bandgap energy of 0.4 eV.) More research will need to be performed, however, on sub-50 nm graphene layers, as its resistivity value increases and thus electron mobility decreases.


Forecasts and roadmaps

In April 2005,
Gordon Moore Gordon Earle Moore (born January 3, 1929) is an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corporation. He is also the original proponent of Moore's law. As of March 2021, Moore's net worth is repor ...
stated in an interview that the projection cannot be sustained indefinitely: "It can't continue forever. The nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens." He also noted that transistors eventually would reach the limits of miniaturization at
atom Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, and ...
ic levels: In 2016 the
International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) is a set of documents produced by a group of semiconductor industry experts. These experts are representative of the sponsoring organisations which include the Semiconductor Industry A ...
, after using Moore's Law to drive the industry since 1998, produced its final roadmap. It no longer centered its research and development plan on Moore's law. Instead, it outlined what might be called the More than Moore strategy in which the needs of applications drive chip development, rather than a focus on semiconductor scaling. Application drivers range from smartphones to AI to data centers. IEEE began a road-mapping initiative in 2016, "Rebooting Computing", named the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS). Most forecasters, including Gordon Moore, expect Moore's law will end by around 2025. Although Moore's Law will reach a physical limitation, some forecasters are optimistic about the continuation of technological progress in a variety of other areas, including new chip architectures, quantum computing, and AI and machine learning.
Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
CEO Jensen Huang declared Moore's law dead in 2022; several days later
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
CEO Pat Gelsinger declared that Moore's law is not dead.


Consequences

Digital electronics have contributed to world economic growth in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The primary driving force of economic growth is the growth of
productivity Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...
, and Moore's law factors into productivity. Moore (1995) expected that "the rate of technological progress is going to be controlled from financial realities". The reverse could and did occur around the late-1990s, however, with economists reporting that "Productivity growth is the key economic indicator of innovation." Moore's law describes a driving force of technological and social change, productivity, and economic growth. An acceleration in the rate of semiconductor progress contributed to a surge in U.S. productivity growth, which reached 3.4% per year in 1997–2004, outpacing the 1.6% per year during both 1972–1996 and 2005–2013. As economist Richard G. Anderson notes, "Numerous studies have traced the cause of the productivity acceleration to technological innovations in the production of semiconductors that sharply reduced the prices of such components and of the products that contain them (as well as expanding the capabilities of such products)." The primary negative implication of Moore's law is that
obsolescence Obsolescence is the state of being which occurs when an object, service, or practice is no longer maintained or required even though it may still be in good working order. It usually happens when something that is more efficient or less risky r ...
pushes society up against the
Limits to Growth ''The Limits to Growth'' (''LTG'') is a 1972 report that discussed the possibility of exponential economic and population growth with finite supply of resources, studied by computer simulation. The study used the World3 computer model to simula ...
. As technologies continue to rapidly "improve", they render predecessor technologies obsolete. In situations in which security and survivability of hardware or data are paramount, or in which resources are limited, rapid obsolescence often poses obstacles to smooth or continued operations. Because of the intensive resource footprint and toxic materials used in the production of computers, obsolescence leads to serious harmful environmental impacts. Americans throw out 400,000 cell phones every day, but this high level of obsolescence appears to companies as an opportunity to generate regular sales of expensive new equipment, instead of retaining one device for a longer period of time, leading to industry using
planned obsolescence In economics and industrial design, planned obsolescence (also called built-in obsolescence or premature obsolescence) is a policy of planning or designing a good (economics), product with an artificially limited Product lifetime, useful life o ...
as a
profit centre A profit center is a part of a business which is expected to make an identifiable contribution to the organization's profits. Overview A profit center is a section of a company treated as a separate business. Thus profits or losses for a prof ...
. An alternative source of improved performance is in microarchitecture techniques exploiting the growth of available transistor count.
Out-of-order execution In computer engineering, out-of-order execution (or more formally dynamic execution) is a paradigm used in most high-performance central processing units to make use of instruction cycles that would otherwise be wasted. In this paradigm, a proce ...
and on-chip caching and
prefetching Prefetching in computer science is a technique for speeding up fetch operations by beginning a fetch operation whose result is expected to be needed soon. Usually this is before it is ''known'' to be needed, so there is a risk of wasting time by p ...
reduce the memory latency bottleneck at the expense of using more transistors and increasing the processor complexity. These increases are described empirically by Pollack's Rule, which states that performance increases due to microarchitecture techniques approximate the square root of the complexity (number of transistors or the area) of a processor. For years, processor makers delivered increases in
clock rate In computing, the clock rate or clock speed typically refers to the frequency at which the clock generator of a processor can generate pulses, which are used to synchronize the operations of its components, and is used as an indicator of the pr ...
s and
instruction-level parallelism Instruction-level parallelism (ILP) is the parallel or simultaneous execution of a sequence of instructions in a computer program. More specifically ILP refers to the average number of instructions run per step of this parallel execution. Disc ...
, so that single-threaded code executed faster on newer processors with no modification. Now, to manage
CPU power dissipation Processor power dissipation or processing unit power dissipation is the process in which computer processors consume electrical energy, and dissipate this energy in the form of heat due to the resistance in the electronic circuits. Power manag ...
, processor makers favor multi-core chip designs, and software has to be written in a
multi-threaded In computer science, a thread of execution is the smallest sequence of programmed instructions that can be managed independently by a scheduler, which is typically a part of the operating system. The implementation of threads and processes dif ...
manner to take full advantage of the hardware. Many multi-threaded development paradigms introduce overhead, and will not see a linear increase in speed vs number of processors. This is particularly true while accessing shared or dependent resources, due to
lock Lock(s) may refer to: Common meanings *Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance *Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal Arts and entertainment * ''Lock ...
contention. This effect becomes more noticeable as the number of processors increases. There are cases where a roughly 45% increase in processor transistors has translated to roughly 10–20% increase in processing power. On the other hand, manufacturers are adding specialized processing units to deal with features such as graphics, video, and cryptography. For one example, Intel's Parallel JavaScript extension not only adds support for multiple cores, but also for the other non-general processing features of their chips, as part of the migration in client side scripting toward
HTML5 HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...
. Moore's law has affected the performance of other technologies significantly: Michael S. Malone wrote of a Moore's War following the apparent success of
shock and awe Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military strategy based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy's perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight. Though ...
in the early days of the
Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...
. Progress in the development of guided weapons depends on electronic technology. Improvements in circuit density and low-power operation associated with Moore's law also have contributed to the development of technologies including
mobile telephones A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while ...
and 3-D printing.


Other formulations and similar observations

Several measures of digital technology are improving at exponential rates related to Moore's law, including the size, cost, density, and speed of components. Moore wrote only about the density of components, "a component being a transistor, resistor, diode or capacitor", at minimum cost. ''Transistors per integrated circuit'' – The most popular formulation is of the doubling of the number of transistors on ICs every two years. At the end of the 1970s, Moore's law became known as the limit for the number of transistors on the most complex chips. The graph at the top shows this trend holds true today. As of 2017, the commercially available processor possessing the highest number of transistors is the 48 core Centriq with over 18 billion transistors.


Density at minimum cost per transistor

This is the formulation given in Moore's 1965 paper. It is not just about the density of transistors that can be achieved, but about the density of transistors at which the cost per transistor is the lowest. 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 In integrated circuit manufacturing, photolithography or optical lithography is a general term used for techniques that use light to produce minutely patterned thin films of suitable materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, to protect ...
, this number would increase at "a rate of roughly a factor of two per year". ''Dennard scaling'' – This posits that power usage would decrease in proportion to area (both voltage and current being proportional to length) of transistors. Combined with Moore's law,
performance per watt In computing, performance per watt is a measure of the energy efficiency of a particular computer architecture or computer hardware. Literally, it measures the rate of computation that can be delivered by a computer for every watt of power consu ...
would grow at roughly the same rate as transistor density, doubling every 1–2 years. According to Dennard scaling transistor dimensions would be scaled by 30% (0.7x) every technology generation, thus reducing their area by 50%. This would reduce the delay by 30% (0.7x) and therefore increase operating frequency by about 40% (1.4x). Finally, to keep electric field constant, voltage would be reduced by 30%, reducing energy by 65% and power (at 1.4x frequency) by 50%. Therefore, in every technology generation transistor density would double, circuit becomes 40% faster, while power consumption (with twice the number of transistors) stays the same. Dennard scaling came to end in 2005–2010, due to leakage currents. The exponential processor transistor growth predicted by Moore does not always translate into exponentially greater practical CPU performance. Since around 2005–2007, Dennard scaling has ended, so even though Moore's law continued for several years after that, it has not yielded dividends in improved performance. The primary reason cited for the breakdown is that at small sizes, current leakage poses greater challenges, and also causes the chip to heat up, which creates a threat of
thermal runaway Thermal runaway describes a process that is accelerated by increased temperature, in turn releasing energy that further increases temperature. Thermal runaway occurs in situations where an increase in temperature changes the conditions in a way t ...
and therefore, further increases energy costs. The breakdown of Dennard scaling prompted a greater focus on multicore processors, but the gains offered by switching to more cores are lower than the gains that would be achieved had Dennard scaling continued. In another departure from Dennard scaling, Intel microprocessors adopted a non-planar tri-gate FinFET at 22 nm in 2012 that is faster and consumes less power than a conventional planar transistor. The rate of performance improvement for single-core microprocessors has slowed significantly. Single-core performance was improving by 52% per year in 1986–2003 and 23% per year in 2003–2011, but slowed to just seven percent per year in 2011–2018. ''Quality adjusted price of IT equipment'' – The
price A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, the price of production has a different name. If the product is a "good" in the c ...
of information technology (IT), computers and peripheral equipment, adjusted for quality and inflation, declined 16% per year on average over the five decades from 1959 to 2009. The pace accelerated, however, to 23% per year in 1995–1999 triggered by faster IT innovation, and later, slowed to 2% per year in 2010–2013. While quality-adjusted microprocessor price improvement continues, the rate of improvement likewise varies, and is not linear on a log scale. Microprocessor price improvement accelerated during the late 1990s, reaching 60% per year (halving every nine months) versus the typical 30% improvement rate (halving every two years) during the years earlier and later. Laptop microprocessors in particular improved 25–35% per year in 2004–2010, and slowed to 15–25% per year in 2010–2013. The number of transistors per chip cannot explain quality-adjusted microprocessor prices fully. Moore's 1995 paper does not limit Moore's law to strict linearity or to transistor count, "The definition of 'Moore's Law' has come to refer to almost anything related to the semiconductor industry that on a
semi-log plot In science and engineering, a semi-log plot/graph or semi-logarithmic plot/graph has one axis on a logarithmic scale, the other on a linear scale. It is useful for data with exponential relationships, where one variable covers a large range o ...
approximates a straight line. I hesitate to review its origins and by doing so restrict its definition." ''Hard disk drive areal density'' – A similar prediction (sometimes called
Kryder's law Mark Howard Kryder (born October 7, 1943 in Portland, Oregon) was Seagate Corp.'s senior vice president of research and chief technology officer. Kryder holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a ...
) was made in 2005 for
hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...
areal density The area density (also known as areal density, surface density, superficial density, areic density, mass thickness, column density, or density thickness) of a two-dimensional object is calculated as the mass per unit area. The SI derived unit is ...
. The prediction was later viewed as over-optimistic. Several decades of rapid progress in areal density slowed around 2010, from 30–100% per year to 10–15% per year, because of noise related to smaller grain size of the disk media, thermal stability, and writability using available magnetic fields. ''Fiber-optic capacity'' – The number of bits per second that can be sent down an optical fiber increases exponentially, faster than Moore's law. Keck's law, in honor of
Donald Keck Donald B. Keck (born January 2, 1941) is an American research physicist and engineer most noted for his involvement in developing low-loss optical fiber. Keck grew up in Lansing, Michigan and attended Michigan State University, after which he j ...
. ''Network capacity'' – According to Gerald Butters, the former head of Lucent's Optical Networking Group at Bell Labs, there is another version, called Butters' Law of Photonics, a formulation that deliberately parallels Moore's law. Butters' law 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. Optical networking and
dense wavelength-division multiplexing In fiber-optic communications, wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) is a technology which multiplexes a number of optical carrier signals onto a single optical fiber by using different wavelengths (i.e., colors) of laser light. This techni ...
(DWDM) is rapidly bringing down the cost of networking, and further progress seems assured. As a result, the wholesale price of data traffic collapsed in the
dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
. Nielsen's Law says that the bandwidth available to users increases by 50% annually. ''Pixels per dollar'' – Similarly, Barry Hendy of Kodak Australia has plotted 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, LCD and
LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor Electronics, device that Light#Light sources, emits light when Electric current, current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy i ...
screens, and resolution. ''The great Moore's law compensator (TGMLC)'', also known as
Wirth's law Wirth's law is an adage on computer performance which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster. The adage is named after Niklaus Wirth, a computer scientist who discussed it in his 1995 article "A Plea ...
– generally is referred to as
software bloat Software bloat is a process whereby successive versions of a computer program become perceptibly slower, use more memory, disk space or processing power, or have higher hardware requirements than the previous version, while making only dubious use ...
and is the principle that successive generations of computer software increase in size and complexity, thereby offsetting the performance gains predicted by Moore's law. In a 2008 article in
InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...
, Randall C. Kennedy, formerly of Intel, introduces this term using successive versions of
Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
between the year 2000 and 2007 as his premise. Despite the gains in computational performance during this time period according to Moore's law, Office 2007 performed the same task at half the speed on a prototypical year 2007 computer as compared to Office 2000 on a year 2000 computer. ''Library expansion'' – was calculated in 1945 by
Fremont Rider Arthur Fremont Rider (May 25, 1885 – October 26, 1962) was an American writer, poet, editor, inventor, genealogist, and librarian. He studied under Melvil Dewey, of whom he wrote a biography for the ALA. Throughout his life he wrote in se ...
to double in capacity every 16 years, if sufficient space were made available. He advocated replacing bulky, decaying printed works with miniaturized
microform Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original document size. F ...
analog photographs, which could be duplicated on-demand for library patrons or other institutions. He did not foresee the digital technology that would follow decades later to replace analog microform with digital imaging, storage, and transmission media. Automated, potentially lossless digital technologies allowed vast increases in the rapidity of information growth in an era that now sometimes is called the
Information Age The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during ...
. '' Carlson curve'' – is a term coined by ''The Economist'' to describe the biotechnological equivalent of Moore's law, and is named after author Rob Carlson. Carlson accurately predicted that the doubling time of DNA sequencing technologies (measured by cost and performance) would be at least as fast as Moore's law. Carlson Curves illustrate the rapid (in some cases hyperexponential) decreases in cost, and increases in performance, of a variety of technologies, including DNA sequencing, DNA synthesis, and a range of physical and computational tools used in protein expression and in determining protein structures. '' Eroom's law'' – is a pharmaceutical drug development observation which was deliberately written as Moore's Law spelled backwards in order to contrast it with the exponential advancements of other forms of technology (such as transistors) over time. It states that the cost of developing a new drug roughly doubles every nine years. '' Experience curve effects'' says that each doubling of the cumulative production of virtually any product or service is accompanied by an approximate constant percentage reduction in the unit cost. The acknowledged first documented qualitative description of this dates from 1885. A power curve was used to describe this phenomenon in a 1936 discussion of the cost of airplanes.Wright, T.P., Factors Affecting the Cost of Airplanes, ''Journal of Aeronautical Sciences'', 3(4) (1936): 122–128. '' Edholm's law'' – Phil Edholm observed that the
bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
of
telecommunication network A telecommunications network is a group of nodes interconnected by telecommunications links that are used to exchange messages between the nodes. The links may use a variety of technologies based on the methodologies of circuit switching, mess ...
s (including the Internet) is doubling every 18 months. The bandwidths of online
communication networks A telecommunications network is a group of nodes interconnected by telecommunications links that are used to exchange messages between the nodes. The links may use a variety of technologies based on the methodologies of circuit switching, messag ...
has risen from
bits per second In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (bitrate or as a variable ''R'') is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. The bit rate is expressed in the unit bit per second (symbol: bit/s), often in conjunction w ...
to terabits per second. The rapid rise in online bandwidth is largely due to the same MOSFET scaling that enables Moore's law, as telecommunications networks are built from MOSFETs. ''
Haitz's law Haitz's law is an observation and forecast about the steady improvement, over many years, of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). It claims that every decade, the cost per lumen (unit of useful light emitted) falls by a factor of 10, and the amount of l ...
'' predicts that the brightness of LEDs increases as their manufacturing cost goes down. ''
Swanson's law Swanson's law is the observation that the price of solar photovoltaic modules tends to drop 20 percent for every doubling of cumulative shipped volume. At present rates, costs go down 75% about every 10 years. Origin It is named after Richard ...
'' is the observation that the price of solar photovoltaic modules tends to drop 20 percent for every doubling of cumulative shipped volume. At present rates, costs go down 75% about every 10 years.


See also

* * * * * * * * *


Notes


References


Further reading

* Brock, David C. (ed.) (2006). ''Understanding Moore's Law: Four Decades of Innovation''. Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation. . . * * Thackray, Arnold; David C. Brock, and Rachel Jones (2015). ''Moore's Law: The Life of Gordon Moore, Silicon Valley's Quiet Revolutionary''. New York: Basic Books. * Tuomi, Ilkka (2002). ''The lives and death of Moore's Law''. First Monday, 7(11), November 2002. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v7i11.1000


External links


Intel press kit
– released for Moore's Law's 40th anniversary, with
1965 sketch
by Moore
No Technology has been more disruptive...
Slide show of microchip growth
Intel (IA-32) CPU speeds 1994–2005
– speed increases in recent years have seemed to slow down with regard to percentage increase per year (available in PDF or PNG format)
International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS)
*
ASML's 'Our Stories', Gordon Moore about Moore's Law
ASML Holding ASML Holding N.V. (commonly shortened to ASML, originally standing for Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography) is a Dutch multinational corporation founded in 1984. ASML specializes in the development and manufacturing of photolithograph ...
{{Authority control 1965 introductions Computer architecture statements Digital Revolution History of computing hardware MOSFETs Rules of thumb Technological change