Moore's law 1

Moore's law
Moore's law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing
hardware. The number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively
on an integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years.[1]
The trend has continued for more than half a century and is not
expected to stop until 2015 or later.[2]
The capabilities of many digital electronic devices are strongly linked
to Moore's law: processing speed, memory capacity, sensors and even
the number and size of pixels in digital cameras.[3] All of these are
improving at (roughly) exponential rates as well.[4] This has
dramatically increased the usefulness of digital electronics in nearly
every segment of the world economy.[5] [6] Moore's law describes a Plot of CPU transistor counts against dates of
introduction. Note the logarithmic scale; the fitted
driving force of technological and social change in the late 20th and line corresponds to exponential growth, with
early 21st centuries. transistor count doubling every two years.

The law is named after Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore, who

described the trend in his 1965 paper.[7] [8] [9] The paper noted that
number of components in integrated circuits had doubled every year
from the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958 until 1965 and
predicted that the trend would continue "for at least ten years".[10] His
prediction has proved to be uncannily accurate, in part because the law
is now used in the semiconductor industry to guide long-term planning
and to set targets for research and development.[11]

An Osborne Executive portable computer, from

History 1982, and an iPhone, released 2007 (iPhone 3G in
picture). The Executive weighs 100 times as
The term "Moore's law" was coined around 1970 by the Caltech much, has nearly 500 times the volume, cost 10
professor, VLSI pioneer, and entrepreneur Carver Mead.[8] [12] times as much, and has a 100th the clock
Predictions of similar increases in computer power had existed years frequency of the iPhone.

prior. Alan Turing in a 1950 paper had predicted that by the turn of the
millennium, computers would have a billion words of memory.[13] 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.[14] A New York Times article published August 31, 2009, credits Engelbart as having made the
prediction in 1959.[15]

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 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. That means by 1975, the number of components per integrated circuit for minimum cost
will be 65,000. I believe that such a large circuit can be built on a single wafer.[7]
Moore slightly altered the formulation of the law over time, in retrospect bolstering the perceived accuracy of his law
.[16] Most notably, in 1975, Moore altered his projection to a doubling every two years.[17] Despite popular
misconception, he is adamant that he did not predict a doubling "every 18 months". However, David House, an Intel
colleague,[18] had factored in the increasing performance of transistors to conclude that integrated circuits would
Moore's law 2

double in performance every 18 months.[19]

In April 2005, Intel offered US$10,000 to purchase a copy of the original Electronics Magazine.[20] David Clark, an
engineer living in the United Kingdom, was the first to find a copy and offer it to Intel.[21]

Other formulations and similar laws

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 himself wrote only
about the density of components (or
transistors) at minimum cost.
Transistors per integrated circuit.
The most popular formulation is of the
doubling of the number of transistors
on integrated circuits 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 PC hard disk capacity (in GB). The plot is logarithmic, so the fitted line corresponds to
complex chips. Recent trends show exponential growth.
that this rate has been maintained into
2007.[22]

Density at minimum cost per transistor. This is the formulation given in Moore's 1965 paper.[7] 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.[23] 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".[7] Current state-of-the-art photolithography tools use
deep ultraviolet (DUV) light from excimer lasers with wavelengths of 248 and 193 nm -- the dominant lithography
technology today is thus also called “excimer laser lithography”[24] [25] -- which has enabled minimum feature sizes
in chip manufacturing to shrink from 0.5 micrometer in 1990 to 45 nanometers and below in 2010. This trend is
expected to continue into this decade for even denser chips, with minimum features approaching 10 nanometers.
Excimer laser lithography has thus played a critical role in the continued advance of Moore’s Law for the last 20
years.[26]

Power consumption. The power consumption of computer nodes doubles every 18 months.[27]
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.[28] 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. The current rate of increase in hard drive capacity is roughly similar to
the rate of increase in transistor count. Recent trends show that this rate has been maintained into 2007.[22]
Network capacity. According to Gerry/Gerald Butters,[29] [30] the former head of Lucent's Optical Networking
Group at Bell Labs, there is another version, called Butter's Law of Photonics,[31] a formulation which deliberately
parallels Moore's law. Butter's law[32] 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
Moore's law 3

placed on a single fiber by as much as a factor of 100. Optical networking and dense wavelength-division
multiplexing (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. Nielsen's Law says that the bandwidth
available to users increases by 50% annually.[33]
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, LCD and LED
screens and resolution.

The Great Moore's Law

Compensator (TGMLC), generally
referred to as bloat, and also known as
Wirth's law, is the principle that
successive generations of computer
software acquire enough bloat to offset
Pixels per dollar based on Australian recommended retail price of Kodak digital cameras
the performance gains predicted by
Moore's Law. In a 2008 article in
InfoWorld, Randall C. Kennedy,[34] formerly of Intel, introduces this term using successive versions of Microsoft
Office 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.

As a target for industry and a self-fulfilling prophecy

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. 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 this regard, it can be viewed as a
self-fulfilling prophecy.[11] [35]

Relation to manufacturing costs

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.[36] This had led to the
formulation of "Moore's second law", which is that the capital cost of a semiconductor fab also increases
exponentially over time.[37] [38]
Materials required for advancing technology (e.g., photoresists and other polymers and industrial chemicals) are
derived from natural resources such as petroleum and so are affected by the cost and supply of these resources.
Nevertheless, photoresist costs are coming down through more efficient delivery, though shortage risks remain.[39]
The cost to tape-out a chip at 90 nm is at least US$1,000,000 and exceeds US$3,000,000 for 65 nm.[40]
Moore's law 4

Major Enabling Factors and Future trends

Numerous innovations by a large number of scientists and engineers have been significant factors in the sustenance
of Moore’s law since the beginning of the integrated circuit (IC) era. Whereas a detailed list of such significant
contributions would certainly be desirable, below just a few innovations are listed as examples of breakthroughs that
have played a critical role in the advance of IC technology by more than six orders of magnitude in less than five
decades:
• The foremost contribution, which is the raison d’etre for this entire topic, clearly, is the invention of the integrated
circuit itself, credited contemporaneously to J. Kilby at Texas Instruments[41] and R. Noyce at Intel.[42]
• The invention of the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) field-effect transistor (FET) by F.
Wanlass.[43] A number of phenomenal advances in CMOS technology by many luminaries in the semiconductor
device field since the work of Wanlass have been at the heart of the extremely dense ICs that the industry is able
to fabricate today.
• The invention of the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) technology by R. Dennard at I.B.M.[44] that made
it possible to fabricate single-transistor memory cells. Numerous subsequent major advances in memory
technology by leading researchers worldwide have contributed to the ubiquitous low-cost, high-capacity memory
modules in diverse electronic products.
• The invention of deep UV excimer laser photolithography by K. Jain at I.B.M. in 1982,[24] [25] [26] that has
enabled the smallest features in ICs to shrink from 0.5 micrometer in 1990 to below 45 nanometers in 2010. With
the phenomenal advances made in excimer laser photolithography tools by numerous researchers and companies,
this trend is expected to continue into this decade for even denser chips, with minimum features reaching below
10 nanometers. From an even broader scientific perspective, since the invention of the laser in 1960, the
development of excimer laser lithography has been highlighted as one of the major milestones in the 50-year
history of the laser.[45] [46] [47]
Computer industry technology "road maps" predict (as of 2001) that Moore's law will continue for several chip
generations. Depending on and after 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.[48] Intel was reported
in 2005 as stating that the downsizing of silicon chips with good economics can continue during the next decade[2]
and in 2008 as predicting the trend through 2029.[49]
Some of the new directions in research that may allow Moore's law to continue are:
• Researchers from IBM and Georgia Tech created a new speed record when they ran a silicon/germanium helium
supercooled transistor at 500 gigahertz (GHz).[50] The transistor operated above 500 GHz at 4.5 K
(−451 °F/−268.65 °C)[51] and simulations showed that it could likely run at 1 THz (1,000 GHz). However, this
trial only tested a single transistor.
• As an example of the impact of deep-ultraviolet excimer laser photolithography,[24] [25] in continuing the
advances in semiconductor chip fabrication,[26] IBM researchers announced in early 2006 that they had developed
a technique to print circuitry only 29.9 nm wide using 193-nm ArF excimer laser lithography. IBM claims that
this technique may allow chipmakers to use then-current methods for seven more 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.
• In April 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. The memristor's unique properties allow for
the creation of smaller and better-performing electronic devices.[52] This memristor bears some resemblance to
resistive memory [53] (CBRAM or RRAM) developed independently and recently by other groups for non-volatile
memory applications.
Moore's law 5

• In February 2010, Researchers at the Tyndall National Institute in Cork, Ireland announced a breakthrough in
transistors with the design and fabrication of the world's first junctionless transistor. The research led by Professor
Jean-Pierre Colinge was published in Nature Nanotechnology and describes a control gate around a silicon
nanowire that can tighten around the wire to the point of closing down the passage of electrons without the use of
junctions or doping. The researchers claim that the new junctionless transistors can be produced at 10-nanometer
scale using existing fabrication techniques.[54]

The trend of scaling for NAND flash memory allows doubling of components
manufactured in the same wafer area in less than 18 months.

Ultimate limits of the law

On 13 April 2005, Gordon Moore
stated in an interview that the law
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 would
eventually reach the limits of
miniaturization at atomic levels:

In terms of size [of transistors] Atomisic simulation result for formation of inversion channel (electron density) and
you can see that we're attainment of threshold voltage (IV) in a nanowire MOSFET. Note that the threshold
voltage for this device lies around 0.45 V. Nanowire MOSFETs lie towards the end of
approaching the size of atoms [48]
ITRS. roadmap for scaling devices below 10 nm gate lengths
which is a fundamental barrier,
but it'll be two or three
generations before we get that far—but that's as far out as we've ever been able to see. We have another 10 to
20 years before we reach a fundamental limit. By then they'll be able to make bigger chips and have transistor
budgets in the billions.[55]

In January 1995, the Digital Alpha 21164 microprocessor had 9.3 million transistors. 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 contained more than 40 million transistors. It is theorised that with further miniaturisation, by
2015 these processors should contain more than 15 billion transistors, and by 2020 will be in molecular scale
production, where each molecule can be individually positioned.[56]
Moore's law 6

In 2003 Intel predicted the end would come between 2013 and 2018 with 16 nanometer manufacturing processes and
5 nanometer gates, due to quantum tunnelling, although others suggested chips could just get bigger, or become
layered.[57] In 2008 it was noted that for the last 30 years it has been predicted that Moore's law would last at least
another decade.[49]
Some see the limits of the law as being far in the distant future. Lawrence Krauss and Glenn D. Starkman announced
an ultimate limit of around 600 years in their paper,[58] based on rigorous estimation of total information-processing
capacity of any system in the Universe.
One could also limit the theoretical performance of a rather practical "ultimate laptop" with a mass of one kilogramm
and a volume of one litre. This is done by considering of the speed of light, the quantum scale, the gravitational
constant and the Boltzmann constant.[59]
Then again, the law has often met obstacles that first appeared insurmountable but were indeed surmounted before
long. 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. Everything gets better and better."[60]

Futurists and Moore's law

Futurists such as Ray Kurzweil, Bruce Sterling, and Vernor Vinge
believe that the exponential improvement described by Moore's
law will ultimately lead to a technological singularity: a period
where progress in technology occurs almost instantly.[61]
Although Kurzweil agrees that by 2019 the current strategy of
ever-finer photolithography will have run its course, he speculates
that this does not mean the end of Moore's law:
Moore's law of Integrated Circuits was not the first, but the
fifth paradigm to forecast accelerating price-performance
ratios. Computing devices have been consistently
multiplying in power (per unit of time) from the mechanical
calculating devices used in the 1890 U.S. Census, to
[Newman's] relay-based "[Heath] Robinson" machine that Kurzweil's extension of Moore's law from integrated
cracked the Lorenz cipher, to the CBS vacuum tube circuits to earlier transistors, vacuum tubes, relays and
electromechanical computers.
computer that predicted the election of Eisenhower, to the
transistor-based machines used in the first space launches, to
the integrated-circuit-based personal computer.[62]

Kurzweil speculates that it is likely that some new type of technology (possibly optical or quantum computers) will
replace current integrated-circuit technology, and that Moore's Law will hold true long after 2020.
Seth Lloyd shows how the potential computing capacity of a kilogram of matter equals pi times energy divided
by Planck's constant. Since the energy is such a large number and Plancks's constant is so small, this equation
generates an extremely large number: about 5.0 * 1050 operations per second.[61]
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. The Law of Accelerating Returns described by Ray
Kurzweil has in many ways altered the public's perception of Moore's Law. It is a common (but mistaken) belief that
Moore's Law makes predictions regarding all forms of technology, when it has only actually been demonstrated
clearly for semiconductor circuits. However many people including Richard Dawkins have observed that Moore's
law will apply - at least by inference - to any problem that can be attacked by digital computers and is in its essence
also a digital problem. Therefore progress in genetics where the coding is digital 'the genetic coding of GATC' may
also advance at a Moore's law rate. Many futurists still use the term "Moore's law" in this broader sense to describe
Moore's law 7

ideas like those put forth by Kurzweil but do not fully understand the difference between linear problems and digital
problems.
Moore himself, who never intended his eponymous law to be interpreted so broadly, has quipped:
Moore's law has been the name given to everything that changes exponentially. I say, if Gore invented the
Internet,[63] I invented the exponential.[64]
Martin Ford in The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future,[65]
argues that the continuation of Moore's Law will ultimately result in most routine jobs in the economy being
automated via technologies such as robotics and specialized artificial intelligence and that this will cause significant
unemployment, as well as a drastic decline in consumer demand and confidence, possibly precipitating a major
economic crisis.
Michael S. Malone wrote of a Moore's War in the apparent success of Shock and awe in the early days of the Iraq
War.[66] Michio Kaku, an American scientist and physicist, predicts that in 20 years we will see "the end of Moore's
law and the collapse of silicon power"

Consequences and limitations

Transistor count versus computing performance

The exponential processor transistor growth predicted by Moore does not always translate into exponentially greater
practical CPU performance. For example, the higher transistor density in multi-core CPUs doesn't greatly increase
speed on many consumer applications that are not parallelized. There are cases where a roughly 45% increase in
processor transistors have translated to roughly 10–20% increase in processing power.[67] Viewed even more
broadly, the speed of a system is often limited by factors other than processor speed, such as internal bandwidth and
storage speed, and one can judge a system's overall performance based on factors other than speed, like cost
efficiency or electrical efficiency.

Importance of non-CPU bottlenecks

As CPU speeds and memory capacities have increased, other aspects of performance like memory and disk access
speeds have failed to keep up. As a result, those access latencies are more and more often a bottleneck in system
performance, and high-performance hardware and software have to be designed to reduce their impact.
In processor design, out-of-order execution and on-chip caching and prefetching reduce the impact of memory
latency at the cost of using more transistors and increasing processor complexity. In software, operating systems and
databases have their own finely tuned caching and prefetching systems to minimize the number of disk seeks,
including systems like ReadyBoost that use low-latency flash memory. Some databases can compress indexes and
data, reducing the amount of data read from disk at the cost of using CPU time for compression and
decompression.[68] The increasing relative cost of disk seeks also makes the high access speeds provided by solid
state disks more attractive for some applications.

Parallelism and Moore's law

Parallel computation has recently become necessary to take full advantage of the gains allowed by Moore's law. For
years, processor makers consistently delivered increases in clock rates and instruction-level parallelism, so that
single-threaded code executed faster on newer processors with no modification.[69] Now, to manage CPU power
dissipation, processor makers favor multi-core chip designs, and software has to be written in a multi-threaded or
multi-process manner to take full advantage of the hardware.
Moore's law 8

Obsolescence
A negative implication of Moore's Law is obsolescence, that is, as technologies continue to rapidly "improve", these
improvements can be significant enough to rapidly render predecessor technologies obsolete. In situations in which
security and survivability of hardware and/or data are paramount, or in which resources are limited, rapid
obsolescence can pose obstacles to smooth or continued operations.

References and notes

[1] Although originally calculated as a doubling every year, (ftp:/ / download. intel. com/ museum/ Moores_Law/ Articles-Press_Releases/
Gordon_Moore_1965_Article. pdf) Moore later refined the period to two years. (ftp:/ / download. intel. com/ museum/ Moores_Law/
Video-Transcripts/ Excepts_A_Conversation_with_Gordon_Moore. pdf) It is often incorrectly quoted as a doubling of transistors every 18
months, as David House, an Intel executive, gave that period to chip performance increase.
[2] The trend begins with the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958. See the graph on the bottom of page 3 of Moore's original presentation
of the idea (ftp:/ / download. intel. com/ museum/ Moores_Law/ Articles-Press_Releases/ Gordon_Moore_1965_Article. pdf). The limits of
the trend are discussed here: Kanellos, Michael (19 April 2005). "New Life for Moore's Law" (http:/ / news. cnet. com/
New-life-for-Moores-Law/ 2009-1006_3-5672485. html). cnet. . Retrieved 2009-03-19.
[3] Nathan Myhrvold (7 June 2006). "Moore's Law Corollary: Pixel Power" (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2006/ 06/ 07/ technology/ circuits/
07essay. html). New York Times. .
[4] See Other formulations and similar laws
[5] Rauch, Jonathan (January 2001). "The New Old Economy: Oil, Computers, and the Reinvention of the Earth" (http:/ / www. theatlantic. com/
issues/ 2001/ 01/ rauch. htm). The Atlantic Monthly. . Retrieved 28 November 2008.
[6] Keyes, Robert W. (September 2006). "The Impact of Moore's Law" (http:/ / www. ieee. org/ portal/ site/ sscs/ menuitem.
f07ee9e3b2a01d06bb9305765bac26c8/ index. jsp?& pName=sscs_level1_article& TheCat=2165& path=sscs/ 06Sept& file=Liddle. xml).
Solid State Circuits. . Retrieved 28 November 2008.
[7] Moore, Gordon E. (1965). "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits" (ftp:/ / download. intel. com/ museum/ Moores_Law/
Articles-Press_Releases/ Gordon_Moore_1965_Article. pdf) (PDF). Electronics Magazine. pp. 4. . Retrieved 2006-11-11.
[8] "Excerpts from A Conversation with Gordon Moore: Moore’s Law" (ftp:/ / download. intel. com/ museum/ Moores_Law/ Video-Transcripts/
Excepts_A_Conversation_with_Gordon_Moore. pdf) (PDF). Intel Corporation. 2005. pp. 1. . Retrieved 2006-05-02.
[9] "1965 – “Moore's Law” Predicts the Future of Integrated Circuits" (http:/ / www. computerhistory. org/ semiconductor/ timeline/
1965-Moore. html). Computer History Museum. 2007. . Retrieved 2009-03-19.
[10] Moore 1965, p. 5.
[11] Disco, Cornelius; van der Meulen, Barend (1998). Getting new technologies together (http:/ / books. google. com/
books?id=1khslZ-jbgEC& pg=PA206& lpg=PA206& ots=D38v82mSkm& output=html&
sig=ACfU3U2jPixZgKq-PYwVPHDpwO2Zt31puQ). New York: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 206–207. ISBN 311015630X. OCLC 39391108. .
Retrieved 23 August 2008.
[12] "The Technical Impact of Moore's Law" (http:/ / www. ieee. org/ sscs-news). IEEE solid-state circuits society newsletter. 2006. .
[13] Turing, Alan (October 1950), "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" (http:/ / loebner. net/ Prizef/ TuringArticle. html), Mind LIX (236):
433–460, doi:10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433, ISSN 0026-4423, , retrieved 2008-08-18
[14] NY Times article (http:/ / theory. kitp. ucsb. edu/ ~paxton/ doug. html) 17 April 2005
[15] "After the Transistor, a Leap Into the Microcosm" (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2009/ 09/ 01/ science/ 01trans. html?ref=science), The New
York Times, August 31, 2009. Retrieved August 31, 2009.
[16] Ethan Mollick (2006). "Establishing Moore's Law" (http:/ / www2. computer. org/ portal/ web/ csdl/ doi/ 10. 1109/ MAHC. 2006. 45). IEEE
Annals of the History of Computing. . Retrieved 2008-10-18.
[17] Moore, G.E. (1975). "Progress in digital integrated electronics" (http:/ / ieeexplore. ieee. org/ xpls/ abs_all. jsp?arnumber=1478174). .
[18] http:/ / news. cnet. com/ 2100-1001-984051. html
[19] Although it is often misquoted as a doubling every 18 months, Intel's official Moore's law page (http:/ / www. intel. com/ technology/
mooreslaw/ ), as well as an interview with Gordon Moore (ftp:/ / download. intel. com/ museum/ Moores_Law/ Video-Transcripts/
Excepts_A_Conversation_with_Gordon_Moore. pdf) himself, states that it is every two years.
[20] Michael Kanellos (2005-04-12). "$10,000 reward for Moore's Law original" (http:/ / news. zdnet. co. uk/ 0,39020330,39194694,00. htm).
CNET News.com. . Retrieved 2006-06-24.
[21] "Moore's Law original issue found" (http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ nolpda/ ukfs_news/ hi/ newsid_4472000/ 4472549. stm). BBC News Online.
2005-04-22. . Retrieved 2007-07-10.
[22] Intel.com (http:/ / www. intel. com/ technology/ mooreslaw/ ) – Moore's Law Made real by Intel innovation
[23] Understanding Moore's Law (http:/ / arstechnica. com/ hardware/ news/ 2008/ 09/ moore. ars)
[24] Jain, K. et al, “Ultrafast deep-UV lithography with excimer lasers”, IEEE Electron Device Lett., Vol. EDL-3, 53 (1982); http:/ / ieeexplore.
ieee. org/ xpl/ freeabs_all. jsp?arnumber=1482581
[25] Jain, K. “Excimer Laser Lithography”, SPIE Press, Bellingham, WA, 1990.
Moore's law 9

[26] La Fontaine, B., “Lasers and Moore’s Law”, SPIE Professional, Oct. 2010, p. 20; http:/ / spie. org/ x42152. xml
[27] Wu-Chun Feng (October 2003). "Making a case for Efficient Supercomputing" (http:/ / www. acmqueue. com/ modules.
php?name=Content& pa=showpage& pid=80& page=1). ACM Queue 1 (7). .
[28] Walter, Chip (2005-07-25). "Kryder's Law" (http:/ / www. sciam. com/ article.
cfm?articleID=000B0C22-0805-12D8-BDFD83414B7F0000& ref=sciam& chanID=sa006). Scientific American ((Verlagsgruppe Georg von
Holtzbrinck GmbH)). . Retrieved 2006-10-29.
[29] Forbes.com – Profile – Gerald Butters is a communications industry veteran (http:/ / www. forbes. com/ finance/ mktguideapps/ personinfo/
FromPersonIdPersonTearsheet. jhtml?passedPersonId=922126)
[30] LAMBDA OpticalSystems – Board of Directors – Gerry Butters (http:/ / www. lambdaopticalsystems. com/ about-board-dir. php)
[31] As We May Communicate (http:/ / www. tmcnet. com/ articles/ comsol/ 0100/ 0100pubout. htm)
[32] Speeding net traffic with tiny mirrors (http:/ / www. eetimes. com/ story/ OEG20000926S0065)
[33] Nielsen's Law of Internet Bandwidth (http:/ / www. useit. com/ alertbox/ 980405. html)
[34] (http:/ / www. infoworld. com/ t/ applications/ fat-fatter-fattest-microsofts-kings-bloat-278?page=0,4)
[35] Gordon Moore calls his law a self fulfilling prophecy, according to "Gordon Moore Says Aloha to Moore's Law" (http:/ / www. theinquirer.
net/ inquirer/ news/ 1014782/ gordon-moore-aloha-moore-law). the Inquirer. 13 April 2005. . Retrieved 2 September 2009.
[36] 2005 Infoworld article on Moore's law impact from rising costs and diminishing returns. (http:/ / www. infoworld. com/ article/ 05/ 04/ 19/
HNmooreslaw_1. html)
[37] Does Moore's Law Still Hold? (http:/ / www. edavision. com/ 200111/ feature. pdf)
[38] Moore's Law article by Bob Schaller (http:/ / research. microsoft. com/ ~gray/ Moore_Law. html)
[39] 2006 Chemical & Engineering News article on materials suppliers challenged by rising costs (http:/ / pubs. acs. org/ cen/ coverstory/ 84/
8426cover1. html)
[40] Reference: photomask costs (http:/ / www. rdmag. com/ ShowPR. aspx?PUBCODE=014& ACCT=1400000100& ISSUE=0406&
RELTYPE=PR& ORIGRELTYPE=CVS& PRODCODE=00000000& PRODLETT=AB& CommonCount=0)
[41] Kilby, J., “Miniaturized electronic circuits”, U.S. Pat. 3,138,743, issued June 23, 1964 (filed Feb. 6, 1959).
[42] Noyce, R., “Semiconductor device-and-lead structure”, U.S. Pat. 2,981,877, issued Apr. 25, 1961 (filed July 30, 1959).
[43] Wanlass, F., “Low stand-by power complementary field effect circuitry”, U.S. Pat. 3,356,858, issued Dec. 5, 1967 (filed June 18, 1963).
[44] Dennard, R., “Field-effect transistor memory”, U.S. Pat. 3,387,286, issued June 4, 1968 (filed July 14, 1967)
[45] American Physical Society / Lasers / History / Timeline: http:/ / www. laserfest. org/ lasers/ history/ timeline. cfm
[46] SPIE / Advancing the Laser / 50 Years and into the Future: http:/ / spie. org/ Documents/ AboutSPIE/ SPIE%20Laser%20Luminaries. pdf
[47] U.K. Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council / Lasers in Our Lives / 50 Years of Impact: http:/ / www. stfc. ac. uk/ Resources/
PDF/ Lasers50_final1. pdf
[48] International Technology Roadmap (http:/ / public. itrs. net/ )
[49] "Moore's Law: "We See No End in Sight," Says Intel's Pat Gelsinger" (http:/ / java. sys-con. com/ read/ 557154. htm). SYS-CON.
2008-05-01. . Retrieved 2008-05-01.
[50] "Chilly chip shatters speed record" (http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ 1/ hi/ technology/ 5099584. stm). BBC Online. 2006-06-20. . Retrieved
2006-06-24.
[51] "Georgia Tech/IBM Announce New Chip Speed Record" (http:/ / www. gatech. edu/ news-room/ release. php?id=1019). Georgia Institute of
Technology. 2006-06-20. . Retrieved 2006-06-24.
[52] Strukov, Dmitri B; Snider, Gregory S; Stewart, Duncan R; Williams, Stanley R (2008). "The missing memristor found" (http:/ / www.
nature. com/ nature/ journal/ v453/ n7191/ full/ nature06932. html). Nature 453 (7191): 80–83. doi:10.1038/nature06932. PMID 18451858. .
[53] http:/ / www. pennwellblogs. com/ sst/ eds_threads/ labels/ memristor. php
[54] Dexter Johnson (2010-02-22). "Junctionless Transistor Fabricated from Nanowires" (http:/ / spectrum. ieee. org/ nanoclast/ semiconductors/
nanotechnology/ junctionless-transistor-fabricated-from-nanowires). IEEE. . Retrieved 2010-04-20.
[55] Manek Dubash (2005-04-13). "Moore's Law is dead, says Gordon Moore" (http:/ / www. techworld. com/ opsys/ news/ index.
cfm?NewsID=3477). Techworld. . Retrieved 2006-06-24.
[56] Waldner, Jean-Baptiste (2008). Nanocomputers and Swarm Intelligence. London: ISTE John Wiley & Sons. pp. 44–45. ISBN 1847040020.
[57] Michael Kanellos (2003-12-01). "Intel scientists find wall for Moore's Law" (http:/ / news. cnet. com/ 2100-1008-5112061. html). cnet. .
Retrieved 2009-03-19.
[58] "Universal Limits of Computation" (http:/ / arxiv. org/ abs/ astro-ph/ 0404510)
[59] Seth Lloyd (2000). "Ultimate physical limits to computation" (http:/ / www. nature. com/ nature/ journal/ v406/ n6799/ full/ 4061047a0.
html). Nature. .
[60] "Moore's Law at 40 – Happy birthday" (http:/ / economist. com/ displaystory. cfm?story_id=3798505). The Economist. 2005-03-23. .
Retrieved 2006-06-24.
[61] Kurzweil, Ray (2005). The Singularity is Near. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-03384-7.
[62] Ray Kurzweil (2001-03-07). "The Law of Accelerating Returns" (http:/ / www. kurzweilai. net/ articles/ art0134. html?printable=1).
KurzweilAI.net. . Retrieved 2006-06-24.
[63] Moore here is referring humorously to a widespread assertion that then-Vice President Al Gore once claimed to have invented the internet.
This was, however, based on a misunderstanding. (http:/ / www. snopes. com/ quotes/ internet. asp)
Moore's law 10

[64] Yang, Dori Jones (2 July 2000). "Gordon Moore Is Still Chipping Away" (http:/ / www. usnews. com/ usnews/ biztech/ articles/ 000710/
archive_015221. htm). U.S. News and World Report. .
[65] Ford, Martin, The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future (http:/ / www.
thelightsinthetunnel. com), Acculant Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-1448659814.
[66] Malone, Michael S. Silicon Insider: Welcome to Moore's War (http:/ / abcnews. go. com/ Business/ story?id=86673& page=1) ABC News,
27 March 2003
[67] Anand Lal Shimpi (2004-07-21). "AnandTech: Intel's 90nm Pentium M 755: Dothan Investigated" (http:/ / www. anandtech. com/
cpuchipsets/ showdoc. aspx?i=2129& p=3). Anadtech. . Retrieved 2007-12-12.
[68] Oracle Corporation, InnoDB Data Compression (http:/ / www. innodb. com/ doc/ innodb_plugin-1. 0/ innodb-compression. html), accessed
11 November 2009
[69] See Herb Sutter, The Free Lunch Is Over: A Fundamental Turn Toward Concurrency in Software (http:/ / www. gotw. ca/ publications/
concurrency-ddj. htm), Dr. Dobb's Journal, 30(3), March 2005

Further reading
• Understanding Moore's Law: Four Decades of Innovation. Edited by David C. Brock. Philadelphia: Chemical
Heritage Press, 2006. ISBN 0941901416. OCLC 66463488.

External links

News
• Hewlett Packard outlines computer memory of the future (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8609885.
stm) BBC News, Thursday, 8 April 2010

Articles
• Moore's Law - Raising the Bar (http://download.intel.com/museum/Moores_Law/Printed_Materials/
Moores_Law_Backgrounder.pdf)
• Intel's information page on Moore's Law (http://www.intel.com/technology/mooreslaw/index.htm) – With
link to Moore's original 1965 paper
• Intel press kit (http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/events/moores_law_40th/index.htm) released for
Moore's Law's 40th anniversary, with a 1965 sketch (ftp://download.intel.com/pressroom/images/events/
moores_law_40th/Moores_Law_Original_Graph.jpg) by Moore
• The Lives and Death of Moore's Law (http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_11/tuomi/index.html) – By Ilkka
Tuomi; a detailed study on Moore's Law and its historical evolution and its criticism (http://www.kurzweilai.
net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0593.html) by Kurzweil.
• Moore says nanoelectronics face tough challenges (http://news.com.com/2100-1006_3-5607422.html) – By
Michael Kanellos, CNET News.com, 9 March 2005
• It's Moore's Law, But Another Had The Idea First (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/18/technology/
18moore.html) by John Markoff
• Gordon Moore reflects on his eponymous law (http://www.sciam.com/article.
cfm?id=gordon-e-moore---part-2&page=1) Interview with W. Wayt Gibbs in Scientific American
• Law that has driven digital life: The Impact of Moore's Law (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/
4449711.stm) – A comprehensive BBC News article, 18 April 2005
• No More Moore's Law? (http://www.bbcworld.com/content/clickonline_archive_29_2004.asp?pageid=666&
co_pageid=2) – BBC News article, 22 July 2004
• IBM Research Demonstrates Path for Extending Current Chip-Making Technique (http://www-03.ibm.com/
press/us/en/pressrelease/19260.wss) – Press release from IBM on new technique for creating line patterns, 20
February 2006
Moore's law 11

• Understanding Moore's Law By Jon Hannibal Stokes (http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2008/09/moore.

ars) 20 February 2003
• The Technical Impact of Moore's Law (http://www.ieee.org/portal/site/sscs/menuitem.
f07ee9e3b2a01d06bb9305765bac26c8/index.jsp?&pName=sscs_level1_article&TheCat=2165&path=sscs/
06Sept&file=Keyes.xml) IEEE solid-state circuits society newsletter; September 2006
• MIT Technology Review article: Novel Chip Architecture Could Extend Moore's Law (http://www.
technologyreview.com/Infotech/18063/)
• Moore's Law seen extended in chip breakthrough (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2007/01/27/AR2007012700018.html)
• Intel Says Chips Will Run Faster, Using Less Power (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/technology/
27chip.html?em&ex=1170046800&en=59a4d10473c4a8c8&ei=5087 )
• A ZDNet article detailing the limits (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-5112061.html)
• No Technology has been more disruptive... (http://www.slideshare.net/Christiansandstrom/
no-technology-has-been-more-disruptive-presentation/) Slide show of microchip growth
• Online talk Moore's Law Forever? (http://nanohub.org/resources/188/) by Dr. Lundstrom

Data
• Intel (IA-32) CPU Speeds (http://wi-fizzle.com/compsci/) 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).
• Current Processors Chart (http://mysite.verizon.net/pchardwarelinks/current_cpus.htm)
• Background on Moore's Law (http://download.intel.com/museum/Moores_Law/Printed_Materials/
Moores_Law_Backgrounder.pdf)
• International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) (http://www.itrs.net/)

FAQs
• A C|net FAQ about Moore's Law (http://news.com.com/FAQ+Forty+years+of+Moores+Law/
2100-1006_3-5647824.html?tag=nefd.lede)
Article Sources and Contributors 12

Article Sources and Contributors

Moore's law  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=409353393  Contributors: ***Ria777, .:Ajvol:., 157.178.1.xxx, 200.191.188.xxx, 5900FX, AP1787, ASideropoulos, Aaron
Schulz, Aboros, Abramjackson, Aceofspades1217, Acertain, Addiction123, AdjustShift, Aero14, Aetheling, Afarr, Ageekgal, Aheadofcurve, Airplaneman, Akubhai, Alansohn, Ale And Quail,
AlexTingle, Alfie66, Algr, Ali Esfandiari, Alotau, Altenmann, Aluvus, Amatulic, Amoss, Andycjp, Animaniac1217, AnselGrogan, Antandrus, Anthonzi, Antonio Lopez, Anville, Apdevries,
Arch dude, Army1987, Arnold the Frog, ArnoldReinhold, Artur Buchhorn, Ashmoo, Auntof6, Avia, AxelBoldt, Balderdash707, BaronVonYiffington, Barry.hendy, BbEcPeter, Beatnik8983,
Belinrahs, BenB4, Bender235, Bhaak, Blainster, Bletch, Bogdangiusca, Bogey97, BoojiBoy, Borisblue, Boxstaa, Brews ohare, Brianjd, BrokenSegue, Bryan Derksen, Burschik, CYD,
CanisRufus, Cantus, Captain Impulse, Card, Carlosguitar, CaseyE3100, Cburnett, Ccloutier, Charles Matthews, CharlesGillingham, ChrisfromHouston, Codinghorror, Coemgenus, ColinJF,
Combatentropy, Connelly, Constancespry, Conversion script, Copsewood, Corvus, Cs82, Cubefox, Cunya, Curtdbz, DARTH SIDIOUS 2, DSRH, Danski14, DarExc, Dario D., Darkwind, David
Souther, DeadEyeArrow, Delirium, DerHexer, Dex1337, Dicklyon, Dillard421, Disavian, Discospinster, Diza, Dmccreary, DocWatson42, Donfbreed, DragonKore, Draknfyre, Drevicko,
Dtneilson, DuncanHill, Edivorce, Egil, Egmontaz, ElKevbo, Eliyahu S, Elockid, Elwikipedista, Emre D., Emurphy42, Epasion, Epbr123, Evgeny, Eyu100, Fakechampion, Falcon8765,
FatalError, Ffx, Figureskatingfan, Finngall, Fireice, FrancoGG, Frankie0607, Fruit.Smoothie, Fusionmix, Gaetanomarano, Gaius Cornelius, GavinBoyd1211, Gbear2008, Gblane1, Gelwood,
Germaninventor, Giftlite, Gjeremy, Glane23, Gogo Dodo, Gracefool, GraemeL, GraemeMcRae, Grafen, Graham87, Greg Grahame, GregorB, Grey1618, Groogle, Ground Zero, Grubber,
Guiding light, Guy Harris, Guy M, Hamsterlopithecus, Harland1, HarryHenryGebel, Hathawayc, Hcobb, Hede2000, HenryLi, HereToHelp, Heron, HiraV, Hurricane111, I'm me 101,
Iain.mcclatchie, Ilkka, Imroy, Ingolfson, Intgr, IronGargoyle, Isaac Rabinovitch, IvanLanin, Ixfd64, J.delanoy, JForget, Jaganath, Jake Nelson, Jasontaylor, Jbw2, Jeepday, Jerryseinfeld, Jessemv,
Jfraser, Jimbo Wales, Jj137, Joachim Schrod, John, JohnSchmidt85, JonHarder, Jonnabuz, Judgesurreal777, Jugander, Kanamekun, Kapn Korea, Kbdank71, Keilana, Ken Arromdee, Keraunos,
Keshiklabs, Kingnicholas, Kingpin13, Kjellmikal, Kokopellimama, L33tminion, LaMenta3, Landroo, Ldo, Leafyplant, Leevanjackson, Legare, Lid, Liesel Hess, Liftarn, Lonestarnot, LorenzoB,
LouScheffer, LukeSurl, Lumos3, Luna Santin, M Tea square, MECU, Macintosh User, Magiraud, Male1979, Malleus Fatuorum, MarnetteD, Martial75, Matchups, Mav, Max137, Meekywiki,
Mentifisto, Meritruge23, Mernen, Metz2000, Michael C Price, Michael Hardy, MichaelMcGuffin, Mike.lifeguard, MikeWren, Mikeblas, Mild Bill Hiccup, Mini-Geek, Minority Report, Mirror
Vax, Mlpkr, Mo0, Moriori, Mudgen, MureninC, Mushroom, Myanw, Mycroft7, NZUlysses, Nakon, Nanshu, Narco, Neilc, Neutrality, NewEnglandYankee, Nickpowerz, NickyMcLean, Nicoli
nicolivich, Nigels, Nixdorf, Nopetro, Norm mit, Ohanian, Ole Marius, Oleg Alexandrov, Omegatron, Onorem, OrgasGirl, Orphic, PabloStraub, Pakaran, Paladinwannabe2, Paranoid, Patchouli,
Paul August, PaulTanenbaum, Peterl, Peyre, Pgan002, Phil Boswell, PhilKnight, Philip Trueman, Philosophistry, Phocks, Pietdesomere, Piotrus, Populus, Pseudo-Richard, QRX, QcRef87, Qwfp,
R'n'B, RDBury, RadioFan, Ral315, Raryel, RayBirks, Rdancer, Rdsmith4, Reisio, Remurmur, Rentar, Repku, Reporter Nielsen, RexNL, Rheumatictangle, Rich Farmbrough, Richi, Rijkbenik,
Rilak, Rj, Rjwilmsi, Rob.derosa, Robert K S, Robert Merkel, Robertcathles, Robertvan1, Robma, Roentgenium111, RossPatterson, Rrburke, Rsheil, RustB, Ruud Koot, Rwell3471, S.K.,
Saberwyn, Sampo Torgo, Sangak, Scangemi, Schmiteye, SeanMack, Selket, Sethc, Shadowjams, Shell Kinney, Shortskaterboy1, Simetrical, Sina Kardar, Singularitarian, Sjjupadhyay, Smack,
Snowolf, Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme, Spangineer, Spellmaster, Spiffy sperry, Spondoolicks, SpookyMulder, Squady, SqueakBox, Steppenwulfe, Stirling Newberry, Stuz, Swift as an Eagle,
TK-925, Tagishsimon, Tannin, Tarquin, Taw, Ted Longstaffe, Terryn3, Tesi1700, TestPilot, Thatguyflint, The Anome, The Mad Bomber, The Thing That Should Not Be, The wub,
TheGeoffMeister, TheMadBaron, Thebrid, Themindset, Therath, Thereisapurpose, Thirdhomerun, Thorwald, Thue, Tillman, Tim1988, Tkinias, Tony1, Top Cat, Toughers, Toytoy,
Tr-the-maniac, Tregoweth, Trevor MacInnis, Ttony21, Twocs, Tyw7, Ugur Basak, Ulpianus, Ultraexactzz, Ultramarine, Unicyclehusby, Urod, User A1, ValC, Valorian, Vietbio, Vrenator,
Vt-aoe, Waldir, WaypointPatrol, Wereon, Wernher, Wgsimon, Whitepaw, Whoosit, Widefox, Wiggin15, WikHead, Wiki alf, Wikiborg, Wikidrone, Wikikart99, Wikiuser100, WilliamKF,
Wolfkeeper, Xastic, Xaven, Xezlec, Xlauvawke, Yannos, Yzha519, Z-d, ZachPruckowski, ZimZalaBim, Zodon, Zven, Zzuuzz, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, 799 anonymous edits

Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors

Image:Transistor Count and Moore's Law - 2008.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Transistor_Count_and_Moore's_Law_-_2008.svg  License: GNU Free
Documentation License  Contributors: User:Wgsimon
File:Osborne Executive with iPhone in 2009.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Osborne_Executive_with_iPhone_in_2009.jpg  License: Creative Commons Attribution
2.0  Contributors: Casey Fleser from Nashville, TN
Image:Hard drive capacity over time.svg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Hard_drive_capacity_over_time.svg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: User:Hankwang,
User:Rentar
Image:Hendys Law.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Hendys_Law.jpg  License: Attribution  Contributors: Original uploader was Barry.hendy at en.wikipedia
Image:NAND scaling timeline.png  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:NAND_scaling_timeline.png  License: Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0  Contributors:
Guiding light
Image:Threshold formation.gif  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Threshold_formation.gif  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Saumitra R Mehrotra & Gerhard
Klimeck
Image:PPTMooresLawai.jpg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:PPTMooresLawai.jpg  License: unknown  Contributors: Courtesy of Ray Kurzweil and Kurzweil
Technologies, Inc.

License
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