Moore’s Law

One of the most famous observations in the semiconductor industry is Moore’s Law. The “law” predicts the number of transistors on a given area of silicon will double every 18-24 months. The strive by all companies to abide by Moore’s Law has given us unparalleled increases in computing power. However, Moore’s Law has really ever only worked for digital integrated circuits. Analog circuits do not scale the same, but I’ll leave the topic to another day. Ever since Gordon Moore made his eponymous observation in the 1970s, the semiconductor industry has used this “law” as a guide in their R&D, reaching and maintaining the doubling that Moore had predicted for over 40 years now. Still, there comes a point when transistors can no longer be shrunk, when the transistor hits its fundamental physical limits. Even Moore said in 2008 that Moore’s Law is dead. There has been many predictions of […]