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Gordon Moore: Moore's Law is Dead

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the listen-to-the-law dept.

Golygydd Max writes "Moore's Law will not hold forever, claims Gordon Moore. In a Techworld article, he points out the limitations of the law, in particular, the limitations as we approach the size of atoms. He helpfully explains, however, that the law will hold for a few years yet." Still, sticking around for forty years is pretty impressive.

5 of 379 comments (clear)

  1. Is Intel using this by hsmith · · Score: 5, Interesting

    as an excuse for a lack of innovation?

    "we have reached the limits so don't expect innovation!"

    1. Re:Is Intel using this by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They better not. Leaning back on Moore's Law enabled them to avoid innovation. Getting successively smaller and faster is a matter of refinement, not revolution.

      --
      You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  2. Moore's law is inherently transistor-bound by ikewillis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...and therein lies its true flaw. As the law stipulates doubling transistor counts, as soon as processors are primarily developed with non-transistor based technologies, be they optical or quantum derived, Moore's Law is essentially defunct.

  3. Re:40 years is impressive? by hey! · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, it's impressive for a "law" which is not in any fundamental sense a law, but a speculation about future progress.

    Very few speculations hold for so long.

    By the way, I assume your account name is pronounced "fish".

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  4. Rant for the day... by rice_burners_suck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Perhaps Moore's law really is beginning to run up against its limits, as you will see if you read enough electronics magazines, but what I really don't "get" is this: The Intel processor can do amazing things, but look at the Motorola processors, like the G4s in those Macs... They're faster at floating point and at a variety of other uses. Their instruction set is quite different. There are many other significant differences between the Intel and Motorola processors. And as we know from software, the way an algorithm is made up, or the way it is implemented, can drastically affect the performance. I think processors follow quite the same rules. Maybe it's time, while we're running up against the limits of Moore's law, to examine what software needs to do nowadays, and then design a processor from the ground up that will fulfill each function in the most efficient way possible. And while we're at it, let's go back to the good ol' days of making the software efficient, too. You'd be amazed the kinds of ridiculous things todays' computers can do, but the software is just too darn inefficient.