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Gordon Moore: Moore's Law is Dead
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.
There are a bunch of laws that have been around a bit longer ...
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Don't you mean: Gordon Moore: Moore's Law is still alive
He helpfully explains, however, that the law will hold for a few years yet.
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Who is the Gordon fellow? He thinks he is soooo smart that he can comment on the already tried and true Moore's Law.
I'll tell ya, the nerve of some people, sheesh.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
still reign supreme. Godwin's, in particular.
(Probably going to get modded down by nazi mods)
Never confuse volume with power.
as an excuse for a lack of innovation?
"we have reached the limits so don't expect innovation!"
or Netcraft?
KFG
You know, seems to me that as long as I can remember using computers, people have been saying Moore's law can't hold out forever. And, while, I guess, logically, that has to be true, it seems to be out-living most of these predictions. A lot like Apple and FreeBSD :-)
+Pete
Score:-1, Funny
Oh, well, it's been pronounced dead more often than BSD on Slashdot, so it actually means very little. Even coming from Gordon Moore.
John
Meanwhile I suspect that the number of articles saying Moore's law can't go on forever will double every month on /. starting now.
The laws work perfectly fine. The problem is in a post 9/11 world (no meme here) people don't care for laws or even common sense.
Giving a robot a shotgun and having it controled by a guy a few miles away is fine, but we're moving into sentinent robots with weapons which is where the laws MUST be enforced. These kind of things shouldn't even be around let alone be used to kill people.
Just wait untill robots become mainstream (for cleaning and other basic maintences) and we see the first one of these go nuts and start to shoot at a few cops (and unlike people these will be pinpoint accurate with EVERY shot and unless you have full body armour able to resist an assault rifle at point black range you're going to some pearly gates). We'll soon see these laws are something we MUST listen to and not become idiots with more weapons than sense.
I like muppets.
The "law" will be stretched to include multiprocessing and a multitude of other imporperly attributed leaps in technology... (this helps to solidify how much BS is so called science)
it may well buy a couple gallons of gas
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
People are clever. They figure out ways to do things that seem impossible. While the physical laws of the atom will be a barrier, I have faith that we will work around them (so to speak). Perhaps getting atoms to do multiple things at once (who knows). But don't bet against a breakthough with economic gain at steak.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
I'm glad to see we are switching from the Google story of the day, to the Moore's law story of the day!
I wish I could mod the Wikipedia article up.
...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.
I don't think that Moore's Law can really be considered impressive if it only lasted for forty years. Natural laws, like the law of gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, seem to last a lot longer.
Maybe it should have been called Moore's Conjecture, or Moore's Trend.
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
Someone points out that Moore's law is dead, or will be dead soon. This has been the case since the law was invented!
<sarcasm>Oh wait... THIS time its different?</sarcasm>
I think what is more surprising is how Moore's Law continues to accurately predict the ever increasing number of Slashdot articles on the subject of Moore's Law!
It's only mostly dead.
Did anyone ever, for even a second, think that this would hold true forever?
People call this Moore's "Law", but is it really a law in the same sense as for example, Newton's laws, or the laws of thermodynamics? I mean, these are two examples that are here to stay...
Sorry, technology is human created and organic, it doesn't follow a codified regiment of primes and squares.
Moore's Law never truly existed, it was an axiom to drive an industry to greater profit through the religion of math.
Here's are some thoughts from me:
Iran captures three CIA agents
Until Murphy's law probes the oposite. ;-)
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Why should atoms be a limiting factor? Is there any reason we won't reach a stage where we started manipulating sub-atomic particles for manufacturing purposes?
They've been saying that for years. Who cares!
It states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 months, doesn't it?
I must have missed the bit where it states that the size of chips stays constant. There's no requirement for transistors to get smaller to keep up with Moore's Law. The chips could get bigger.
Maybe not the computational power of a chip, but the computational power of the machine will continue to double. Intel and AMD will release 2,4,8,16 core chips that will double the computational power available in a single machine.
you've got dough!
;)
S AP ICommand=WantItNowView&adId=6955863859
See, Intel wants it cause they lost their copy.
(If you have one, please split proceeds with my library
http://wantitnow.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcI
.. but there are lots of other technologies, esp quantum... where once established you can doubble the calculation capacity every 18 months without very much dificulty.
Was always the law predicting correctly or was the industry to try to follow its predictions?
Of course Moore's law can't hold forever - transistors can only get so small, afterall. But what about the common belief of what the law actually says - that processors will double in speed, rather than transistors. Granted that's an inaccurate interpretation of the law, but it's what most people think it says, outside of geek circles. And that could soldier on.
-Daniel
You cannot double any quantity of anything at a fixed interval, and expect to maintain that trend forever. Recall the story about some guy that was owed a favor by the king, who said "just give me one grain of wheat for the first square of a chess board, twice as much for the second, twice that for the third, and so forth" They thought he was selling himself short until they figured that the 64th square would require enough grain to bury the earth in something like 4ft of grain.. 65 would bury it in 8ft, etc.
"This textbook contains material on Moore's Law. Moore's Law is a theory, not a fact, regarding the scaling of computer processing power. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."
OOPS, I guess you can tell where my mind is this morning.
The benefits now aren't increased density, it's cheaper manufacture costs. They're giving away handheld LCD games in happy meals fer chrissakes!
Just TRY to count the number of CPUs you've used since waking up this morning...don't forget the IR remote, your optical mouse, and your toaster...
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Moore's Law will not hold forever, claims Gordon Moore
Will anything hold forever?
The following statement is true
The preceding statement is false
I was betting on 35 years, but I forgot to take Hofstadter's Law into account.
--
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.
Hofstadter's Law
"Moore's Law" is a theory about innovation, not a law in any way. Sure it's fun to call it a law, but it has no basis in physical phenomena, and it's breakable-- Moore himself says it should run out. Scientific laws don't expire.
Many people have used Moore's Law to loosely talk about computer power doubling every x months. Interpreted that way, Moore's law could survive quite a while longer.
Having said the above however, exponential growth always ends when it bumps into physical barriers. Otherwise the planet would be covered a thousand feet deep in dead flies (who as we all know reproduce exponentially when the environment permits.)
I guess Ray Kurzeil's predictions that computers will have the same power as the human brain by 2020 will not be met...
It can be met right now using clusters. The technology is here now. The problem is that we can't even make a machine as intelligent as a honey bee (only about 1 million neurons), what good would a system with a hundred billion neurons be other than to sit and vegetate?
Film at 11.
I don't understand the real significance of this law. First, it's only a prediction whose series outcome would eventually come to an end. Second, it depends on so many external factors, and there's no real measure of it's true at a certain point in time.
"We'll spend all the money we'd use to make it smaller and put it toward advertising and marketing towards today's demographics! Consumers will love that."
:(
That's what happens a lot of the time
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
Just asking, 'cause we may end up with the situation:
Moore's Law is Dead
--Moore
Moore is Dead
--Moore's Law
If you can double the density of your transistors anymoore, you still can fake it, by doubling the number of cores every year, as Intel and AMD will do. Another thendy trick is to add units for hardware threads... But, if you can figure out how make several layers of cores, the density will double every year again, mixing DVD technology and CPU manufacturers projects, this is the commercial version of moore's law...
After all, you can't really say he has an understanding of it if he thinks it will end. So will it be renamed once he's proven wrong?
Probably not.
The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss himself.'
...Moore's law is dying !
However, there's a huge difference between being dead now (as the title claims) and dying in a few years (as the summary claims). Which one is correct ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Very contradictory: The title is "Moore's Law is Dead" but then the article states, "He helpfully explains, however, that the law will hold for a few years yet."
I guess "Moores Law will hold for a few years" isn't as much of an attention grabber, but at least it's honest.
Long Live Moore's Law!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
It's not dead, it only smells funny.
Moore's "Law" is a Marketing Axiom, not a law of nature or even a good approximation of technical development.
The chip makers have deliberately held their product releases to this rate so that they can continually improve and show growth for Wall Street.
It's a good strategy -- got people to upgrade more often for many years -- only now are they reaching the point where a cheapo home PC has enough horsies to do everything the typical clueless user might with to -- I'm still using 4-year old boxes and doing fine for most everything.
I wonder if Moore's law is a self-imposed limitation whereby people don't think outside of the box and therefore maintain a steady progress.
Then there is conspiracy theory view of it all: Intel and AMD are colluding to stay within the bounds of Moore's law to make sure all of us by new PC's that will be outdated in 6 months rather than put out 16GHz machines tomorrow.
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
"There are more than enough new computing technologies now being researched, including three-dimensional silicon chips, optical computing, crystalline computing, DNA computing, and quantum computing, to keep the law of accelerating returns as applied to computation going for a long time."
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
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.
Gorden Moore's Law: Moore's Law will die
So in turn...once Moore's law dies, Moore's law will kick in! It will never end!!!
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Does anyone have a Netcraft link?
Oh well, it was too good to be true.
Did it seriously take him 40 years to realize what everyone else has known for quite some time?
I'm just surprised it's lasted as long as it has.
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
I know the poet's version of the law, that the number of transistors doubles every year, but why do people make such a fuss about it other than the fact that it's a nice little prediction? That is: Ok, we've observed this dynamic; does it have any practical implications whatsoever?
Moore's Law may continue to hold for a while yet, however Eric's Law that the power consumption of a transistor is inversely proportional to its size seems to be pushing the CPU towards being a point source at T -> infinity may make increasing CPU transistor density impractical.
This was pooh-pooh'd, however, by the optimists, who said that by the time this is a problem, new forms of miniaturization will have been developed to overcome these problems, such as using biological material in computer circuitry whose electronic properties are different from metals in some fundamental way that I don't understand which solves this problem.
The date for all this sophistry? They said it in 1993 (I believe the article was in PC Magazine). I'm not really supporting either side here, just repeating something I learned almost 15 years ago and never forgot, because I'm still curious about who will end up being right. They predicted that computer development would hit a wall between 2015 and 2020.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
The industry should put as much effort on sensible power consumption and battery technology as they do on miniaturization. I realize these goals often intersect, but with an increase in the cost of fuel that is not likely to decrease in the short- to middle-term, I'd be happier with devices that were power-savvy.
return;
Seeing how you fools have been talking about his law as if it was one of the 10 Commandments, he stepped in and humbly tried to put an end to this insanity. Probably won't make a difference, as the hype factor is too great to allow it to die.
Must-not-watch TV!
As Coroner , I thoroughly examined Moore's Law And it's not only merely dead It's really most sincerely dead
...in that since the first computer was built computers have more than double every whatever... they've gone beyond moore's law. IF you're talking about shitty consumer PC's then maybe... but we'll go way beyond that in the future. If Intel or AMD wanted to, they could scrap silicon wafers and use whatever the hell they wnated to, whatever material is better. It's not economically viable right now, but any company if they wanted to could shatter moore's law right now. The reason it isn't being done is because of economics, which will be obsolete in the future anyways. As soon as people start doing things for the sake of kicking ass and bettering society then we'll fly to other galaxies and moore's law will be known as the law of mental retardation, when pigs who will burn in hell ruled the world.
I'm not anti-microsoft. I'm anti-bullshit. Which means I'm anti-microsoft.
The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts Moore's Law on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Moore's Law: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
The Dead Moore's Law That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Moore's Law: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
The Dead Moore's Law That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man with Dead Moore's Law: Yes he is.
The Dead Moore's Law That Claims It Isn't: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man with Dead Moore's Law: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
The Dead Moore's Law That Claims It Isn't: I'm getting better.
Large Man with Dead Moore's Law: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
The Dead Moore's Law That Claims It Isn't: I don't want to go on the cart.
Large Man with Dead Moore's Law: Oh, don't be such a baby.
The Dead Collector: I can't take him.
The Dead Moore's Law That Claims It Isn't: I feel fine.
Large Man with Dead Moore's Law: Oh, do me a favor.
The Dead Collector: I can't.
Large Man with Dead Moore's Law: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
The Dead Collector: I promised I'd be at the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
Large Man with Dead Moore's Law: Well, when's your next round?
The Dead Collector: Thursday.
The Dead Moore's Law That Claims It Isn't: I think I'll go for a walk.
Large Man with Dead Moore's Law: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
The Dead Moore's Law That Claims It Isn't: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[the Dead Collector glances up and down the street furtively, then silences the Law with his a whack of his club]
Large Man with Dead Moore's Law: Ah, thank you very much.
The Dead Collector: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Large Man with Dead Moore's Law: Right.
Mid-Eastern Pennsylvania Gaming Convention
Big deal.
So what.
It's just some old dead guy that made a prediction. IT DOESN'T MATTER.
So fucking what. Every day there's something about Moore's law... Moore's law this... Moore's law that. Big fucking deal. Just get faster processers and shut the hell up about Moore's law.
A strange title, considering the article states that Moore's Law is not dead, just that it will eventually end:
"We have another 10 to 20 years before we reach a fundamental limit"
Even then, that is only Moore's law for current silicon technologies.
That is a long time to come up with alternatives: 3D circuits, molecular computing, optical processing and perhaps even quantum computing.
Come get me when it's time to go through his pockets for loose change.
I'll be over at Max's place having an MLT. Mmmmm mutton, lettuce and tomato, with the mutton nice and lean....
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
I mean, if... Oh never mind.
Quantum computing is neat in theory, but has made not significant progress in the number of qbits manipulatable in years. Granted there are new ways to make qbits, but nothing can seem to get 7 to 10 to date. Hopefully there will be a breakthrough, but you can't just command one. There is no scaling technology for Quantum Computers yet.
I predict biological approaches will similarly run into intractably hard roadblocks on the way to usefulness, with the possible exception of practical biological to electronic interfaces to aid the disabled and in the more distant future meld with the machine so to speak.
All is not lost however, multicore is of course where the industry is going for now, but expect more specialization in silicon for well-defined tasks. Graphics processors will get more powerful as algorithms improve and are more efficiently implemented with the transistors available. Any application that becomes mainstream will get its own processing unit of some sort. Granted this make for less flexibility in expanding the capabilities of existing machines, but software has been getting a free ride off the speed scaling in chips for years. In the future the line between programming and chip designing will blur as the two must work in concert to achieve the desired performance in whatever domain is desired.
Imagine a compiler that doesn't just compile code but tapes out the coprocessor need to run it.
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This is not good news for Msft, where the bloat of software doubles every 18 months.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Check out Richard Feynman's lectures on computation. In 1984-86, he presented solutions to the problem of sub-atomic scales for computer design. ISBN: 0738202967
In Soviet Russia, Moore's law kills you!
I think that Moore's low is not at all about computers, or circuits, or speed Vs time. It is related to the economic model of chip makers. Someone has to look at the subject from that point of view.
Yeah, theories that stick around for forty years are pretty impressive. I haven't seen one of thos....oh wait, relativity?
I guess now with Star Trek put to sleep the nerds need another guide to life such as "Moore's Law."
Simple, unifying, and wrong.
While Moore's law refers to the number of transistors, the only reason it matters to the rest of us is because it has also mapped pretty well to speed. We've become accustomed to actual speed doubling every couple of years or so. And in this respect, the law seems to be in serious trouble.
So much so that Intel and AMD have had to resort to flogging multi-core chips, rather than actual faster chips.
I don't want more cores damnit, I want a faster chip. If I wanted more cores, I would have bought a cluster.
It's a major pain to try and parallelize existing algorithms, and for many it won't be possible at all. Not to mention the huge bulk of existing software that operates in a strictly linear fasion. No, this multi-core marketing offensive just doesn't cut it. How would you feel if you went to buy a top of the range Ferrari, only to be told that "well, it only does 100mph, but it does have two engines"?
The industry may still be adhering to the letter of the law, but the spirit appears to have departed.
"I didn't say it was dead, I said it was mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead, he's slightly alive."
I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
Silicon is usually etched as a single-sided, flat medium. Of course, the wafer has two sides (doubling the usable surface area, if you can get rid of the extra heat fast enough), and space is three-dimensional, which means that transistors don't need to take real-estate on the wafer itself.
Finally, and this is what would eliminate the upper limit problem, you'd need an N-state transistor. In other words, one that could handle N-state discrete signals, rather than binary signals. Then, you can fold as many binary transistors as you like into a single physical device.
Of course, Intel being Intel, the sun will have long since faded into a white dwarf, long before we see any of these - or any other technology for saving Moore's Law over the long term - put into practice.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
it's just noone puled the feeding tube yet.
You can't handle the truth.
As Moore says in the article, Moore's Law will become obsolete by the time we reach the atomic (nano) scale.
However, he gives it 30 to 40 years. Which is rather unfortunate - the sooner we have atomic scale transistors the better, don't you think?
There was no need to grow faster than the law, and plenty of reason to try to keep up with it. That creates equilibrium right around where the law "predicts" growth will lie.
Should researchers decide that Moore's Law is no longer relevant, then growth will slow. Should they decide it could still be achieved, more resources will be put into doing so, and it will.
Personally, I predict the Law will continue to function as ever. It may be harder for researchers to keep up with it in ten years than it is now, but I am sure the difficulty of matching its pace has varied back and forth since its inception.
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I just checked with Netcraft and it's true. It's time for a new law. I vote for Sturgeon's Law because it is a universal constant. Take this post (and my next 8) for example.
I guess it was more like Moore's Theory or Moore's Hypothesis or Moore's Good Guess.
Well... have they?
Continuing the Slashdot trend of putting very misleading titles on their articles to attract readers, this headline states "Moore's Law is Dead", yet also adds, "He helpfully explains, however, that the law will hold for a few years yet."
That's like a doctor telling someone that they're dead but they'll still be living for a few years yet.
sooner rather then later. I would rather they come up with the end all be all PC now. That way I dont have to spend 2000 bucks every 2 years to upgrade my PC. It's getting to be waste of money. At this point I'll have to get a new 500$ E-Machine and forget the fast PC's.
As time goes on the amount of transisters double, the performace difference becomes so huge from one gerneration of chips to the next that you will no longer be able to go two years without upgrading. Also, I would think that programers would have a tough time keeping pace with the new hardware.
Somthing will have to change.
For one thing we're seeing GPUs take over from CPUs. The power on GPUs is currently growing by (Moore's Law)^3 with power doubling every 6 months. And there's tons of room for further expansion with GPUs as they are inherently scalable unlike CPUs. Check out the books "GPU Gems 1 & 2" for many examples of non-graphics applications of GPUs raging from options pricing to molecular simulation.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
If it is no longer valid, then it was never a law. It should have been called Moore's Rule of Thumb, or Moore's Conjecture.
Why is the size of atoms a limitation to the computational speed?
There are many different bottlenecks in a system besides the main CPU and even for the CPU there are sub-atomic particles that can make a difference. For example photons have many possible quantum states which span through dimensions we don't even understand yet.
I believe that the law that he is speaking of fails in the Newtonian physics arena but there is a lot more to information processing. Look at a human brain for example. Do you think that the human brain is slower then the speed of a CPU in 3 years from now?
Ever thought that maybe Moore has something to do with why CPUs don't get faster quicker? The industry is clocked at the speed defined by Moore's law. Overclockers have proved again and again that Moore's law is not really a law but a rule of thumb.
Has Netcraft confirmed it yet?
- there is a lot of money to be made.
- there is a high cost of market entry for producers.
- there are big margins.
Oligopolies thrive in these conditions.At least be open to the idea. It was conjecture in the first place.
...Long Live Moore's Law!
Not enough information in the Universe!!! Looks funny, but it's backed by serious physics: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0404510&e=10129
limitations as we approach the size of atoms
Why? Can we not find some way to build computers utilizing something more plentiful? There are a wide variety of sub-atomic particles which could be used to construct computers. We haven't discovered how to do it yet, but we have time.
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No, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
In The Emotional Machine Kurzweil showed Moore's law being more widely applicable than originally predicted. Historical analysis demonstrates its applicability to machine growth in general, even pre-transistor and pre-Moore's law. It's a function of an evolutionary process.
that moore's law died 5 years ago. And back then I thought it died 5 years before that. Seems like I am reading how Moore's law won't be around forever every few months. Nothing new here...
Given the speed increase we are seeing, pc boards are getting harder to design and build. I think the next step might be cheap hybrid circuits (A lot like pc boards but much smaller). The process would be a lot like it is to get pc boards now. Email the design to the board house and two days later you have some four layer boards for pretty cheap. The problem would be mounting the parts because: 1 - you couldn't expect the hybrid house to have every part in existance and 2 - the current technology doesn't let you do that on the kitchen table. Maybe the special parts could be socketed or something.
Certainly FPGAs and PSOCs allow you to design stuff that is then easily translated to ASICs.
Bottom line: you are right.
It states that the number of security holes in Microsoft products increases exponentially every 18 months whereas the number of patches only increases linearly.
-sp-
Shouldn't it be called Moore's Theory since a Law is proven without a doubt to be fact?
I think he's a friend of that Steve Bourne fella.
Intel quietly rescinds its $10,000 offer for an original copy of Moore's Law.
-- Boycott Shell
If the law dies, what will it's new name be?
Some suggestions I can think of:
Moore's un-Lawful
Moore's Limit
No Moore Room In The Die Law
Moore Or Less Atoms Law
Moore's Suggestion
Moore's law isn't dead until congress says it's dead.
Netcraft confirms: Moore's Law is dying!
Heck, we have laws in this country that were passed less than a year ago that have been broken already LOL.... I remember when I was a kid, someone printed in the local newspaper some "old obscure" laws of our town still on the books. One was that during the week of the fair, you had to walk your vehicle (horse and buggy) across the railroad tracks. Well, me and my buddies figured if it was a law, we sure didn't want to break it. We got a couple long pieces of rope, tied it to the front bumper of my moms car (back then cars had these heavy things on the front and rear of the cars called bumpers). When we were making the circle around town, everytime we came to the railroad tracks, we'd put the car in neutral, jump out and pull the car across the railroad tracks. It was pretty funny the 3 times we did it....but on the fourth the cops showed up and asked us what the H*LL we were doing. We told him walking our vehicle across the tracks like the law says. Needless to say, he didn't see the humor in that....
I question the validity of initially calling it, or any other prediction, a law. Although not defined as such, calling it a 'law' makes people think it's a timeless governing principle that does not change. And now we tell people that the 'law' is overruled? It puzzled me since I was in college 15 years ago.
What's that other law that predicted the end of Moore's law?
Oh, yeah, that one real law. Two objects can't occupy the same space at the same time...
Make sure you all save that edition of Techworld! There might be a bunch of money waiting for you in the future if you do!
Moore's Law is dead. Long live Moore's Law!
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
I think it is strange that this is Moore's Law, when evolution is just called "a theory". Perhaps if we started calling it the "Law of Evolution", Kansas school boards would think twice before banning it...
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Of course Moore's Law is dead. And I predict that in 18 months it will be twice as dead.
That explains why they want the Last Remaining Copy of that April '65 issue of Electronics... They plan to destroy all evidence the Moore Law ever existed and then invoke the DMCA agains anyone who mentions it when their next processor is not twice as fast as the previous release...
Ingenious indeed...
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Moore's law has stuck around for forty years in the same way that my pet hampster lived for ten years. It died but got replaced by something similar with the same name and nobody noticed.
That's incorrect. It should be called 'Moore's Prediction', 'Moore's Prophecy' etc... Anything but a law, which implies that there is some sort of scientific basis for it.
Those aren't rhetorical questions, they're actual questions. I really am curious.
Moore's law is the expression of one development strategy in (IT) systems:
faster clock, faster clock, faster clock...
more density to better distribute a faster clock to shorter distances (clock deck design is an artform), yes;
more density to cram more functions? nope, the function set has not been expanded wildly, only I/O has been growing, and again, cram as much on the one chip (L1, L2, buffers) as to keep the clock within the family.
This strategy is coming to an end, when the clock wavelength approaches the chip metrics.
What will happen?
As in the old amplifiers: more gain, more gain, more gain resulted in more noise, the parametric amplifier was the way out.
Computing devices will have to become parametric to be able to do more: 90nm or less won't cut it.
That Moore's law seems to weaken may be an indicator that people seem to look elsewhere, because cramming more and more into a chip is always possible, just use Xrays to do the master, or go to electron lithographic techniques.
Get rid of the clock, and we won't need a Moore's law as the result from the current development strategy.
It is I would say, not a law at all, but a symptom of the clock race, which will come to an end.
I heard Moore once say that his "law" was really about economics more then technology. Because to double the number of features requires that you buy new manufacturoing equipment and the newer equipemtn always costa a lot morte then the old stuff did. So the rate of growth in features per unit area on a chip is goverened by the rate of investment in new chip making machines. He said that because each new fab plant costs twice as much as he last plant eventually a new plant would cost more then the total world economic output and then you can't build the next plant.
So basically the last time I read about Gordon Moor claimming his law would have to end he used the economic argument. But now It seems he is saying physical limits will be hit before economic limits, after all the world economy is growing.
He has been trying to think of ways his law will fail for years. There was the lithography limit ad then they went to UV light and then the economic argument.
Who/what will last longer: Gordon Moore or His Law?
The expected useful lifespan of Moore's Law will be cut in half every 18 months.
In other news:
Moore's Law: Gordon Moore is Dead
Increasing density is valuable, not only because it lets you put more transistors per chip, but also because the smaller transistors mean shorter travel distances for electons/holes, and therefore faster computation and higher clock rates. But if you could do the mythical true 3D design, instead of just a few layers, then you'd have *lots* of transistors a few microns or tens of microns away from each other instead of hundreds to thousands of microns away on the other side of a chip. Maybe you can't do that easily in silicon, or maybe a coarse-3D approach will help (e.g. 10-20 layers of chip stacked on top of each other, as opposed to hundreds of layers), or maybe carbon nanotubes or buckyballs or nano-unobtainium or whatever will be more flexible. Or maybe holographic memories could be useful. Who knows?
It's hypothetically possible that the Quantum Computing people might make some breakthrough that lets some kinds of problems be solved in small-polynomial time instead of exponential time, with some usable probability of a correct answer, so you'll have to start filling those liquid-cooling systems with liquid helium. (As a cryptographer, I'd find this very annoying, because most or all of the currently useful public-key technology would get trashed, but as a combinatoric mathematician, I'd find it to be really really cool :-) That's definitely not a Moore's Law approach to computers - it's major theoretical breakthroughs as opposed to continual rapid improvement due to technical investment and lots of minor theoretical breakthroughs.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Too bad it's not Godwin's Law that's dying.
Interestingly, I was just reading an article this morning in which Intel CEO Craig Barrett addresses this. He talks about developing tiny sensors for use in the medical industry and how that will cause a push for ever smaller chips. Quote:
Although manufacturers will have to develop new technologies to maintain the pace of development, Moore's Law won't die anytime soon. Intel has already produced prototype transistors based on the next five generations of manufacturing processes, which means that the chip industry can count on at least another decade of shrinking and adding transistors.
"That kind of guarantees you another five generations," [Barrett] said. "There is no fundamental limit there."
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
Moore's law has become a law of marketing rather than computer science, and as such it will never be broken, even if it means the definition of "transistor", "chip", "month" or even "double" has to be changed.
But at 1:23 p.m., Fox News Channel anchor Shepard
Smith reported that {Moore's Law} had died. At least
initially, he did not cite sources.
By 1:30 p.m., Fox reporter Greg Palkot in Rome was
sending signals of caution, saying the report had not
been confirmed and the network was checking into it.
"The exact time of death, I think, is not something that
matters so much at this moment for we will be reliving
{Moore's Law} for many days and weeks and even years
and decades and centuries to come," Smith said.
If you read up on eugenics, you would learn that your statement has more truth to it than you think. Wreckless breeding and modern society are moving us backwards genetically. It will continue until we change, or the society collapses due to an abundance of dumb people.
This is an idea that has been bandied about for quite a while. The first time I recall hearing it was from a friend in the second half of the 1990s, between the time of the demise of Cyrix and the rise of AMD, where Intel essentially had no competition.
At that time, the idea was possible, if implausible. Recently I did reconsider this conjecture, with regards to the current market. At this time I can dismiss it out of hand.
There is indeed a lot of money to be made, and that that offsets the high cost of entry. Thus, if better processors are possible with modern technology, and the start-up costs are finite, competition will enter the market. If, on the other hand the start-up cost are insurmountable, then an oligopoly is possible. (if, for example, they are greater than can be raised with a safe investor base, allow either of the market leaders to buy the start-up out before their product hits the market.)
[note: as you can see, I am not the most eloquent writer around, but please bear with me.]
Untimately, if Moore's Law is dying, as the article states, then now would be the time they would be releasing their 'buffered' technology. It is pretty obvious that this isn't the case. The near future chip improvements all seem to revolve around multiple-core processors, an innovation that look like it will have little effect on overall performance.
Thus, I dismiss your idea of 'buffered' technology.
There is a far more likely scenario, that allows for the 'throttling' of new chip release performance and the existance of effective competition. These companies have huge resources, but they are still finite resources. They keep multiple lines of research open, and when they discover their competitors's advances in a certain area, they funnel their development budget into that technology, to keep up with the competition. The throttling is a result of research costs: They spend as much money as they need to keep up with their competitors, and perhaps to keep in check with Moore's Law.
Perhaps the recent 64-bit desktop chips were an example of this. AMD had a particularly successful (cost/benefit) line of research with this technology, and Intel had to spend extra money (increase costs) to catch up.
If it's in you sig, it's in your post.
In 18 months I predict the number of Moore's Law jokes on Slashdot will have doubled
Has Netcraft confirmed it?
We still have the third dimension to exploit.
The Bohr radius a is(4pi(epsilon_0)(hbar)^2)/(me^2), and is closely related to the apparent size of atoms (m is the mass of the electron). Clearly, atoms can be shrunk if electrons of greater mass are used. Can you reduce the decay rate of muons to ~0? Then you can have smaller atoms.
They killed Moore's law! You Bastards!
The Property of One's : "The Oneitude is directly proportional to the Colditude of the one." - S.B.
Netcraft confirms: Moore's law is dying.
It'll be worth $10,000 in 40 years.
People thought the earth was flat for a lot longer than that, and observation bore them out for quite a while.
Reduce(original articles) Reuse(old articles) and Recycle(old news into new news)!
It's pretty clear they're just thinking about the environment here..
Occam's Razor suggests a simpler explanation: external regulation.
Clearly, someone (probably the NSA) is holding back the development of technology (to preserve their edge). In order for this to not look suspicious, they're allowing *some* development - and using Moore's Law as a guideline.
As proof, I offer to you the Earth Simulator; the first supercomputer to get a serious jump on the curve - and the first supercomputer outside the NSA's jurisdiction. Coincidence?
Hang on, I think I hear a knock at the door...
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
One more law falls by the wayside because people won't obey it. Cue excited discharge of semi-automatic rifles.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Newton's Laws held for 250 years - pretty impressive. It doesn't mean they were right though.
Moore's law is getting old, but so is Gordon Moore. He must be 65+ years old now. The obvious question is: Who dies first?
Moore says his law will end as we approach single atom dimensions - e.g. single atom thick gate oxide. But that's only one dimension.
:-) degrees of freedom than XYZ. Gate oxide may be approaching 1 atom thick, but channel length is many atoms across, and channel width is comparatively huge. To say nothing of the dimensions of the metal and poly wires, gates, contacts and vias that are really. I.e. transistor gate oxide may be approaching single atom thickness, possibly a fundamental limit, but all of the supporting structures have a way to go.
I started out wanting to say that Moore's single atom limit is a planar, 2D, limit. But gate oxide thickness is vertical in present technology.
Nevertheless, the density increases of Moore's Law have all been accomplished essentially in 2 dimensions, in the plane on the top of a silicon wafer.
This leaves one dimension. The Z axis.
Sure, vertical feature size has decreased. But we don't really have multiple active layers - we don't really have multiple layers of transistors. There's essentially a single layer of transistors, and several layers of interconnect above it. That's it.
People are beginning to stack multiple chips into the same package, one on top of the other. But the chips are still pretty thick, even when thinned. Millions of atoms thick? Certainly many thousands.
People have already demonstrated lift-off and transfer techniques producing multiple active layers. Not cost effective to manufacture, but the devices can be built.
I conjecture that there are almost as many years as Z-axis features shrink, as there were in 2D Moore's Law, before fundamental limits are reached. Another 40 years?
Further, there are more (Moore?
I conjecture that the "ultimate" device would have wires that are 1 atom in diameter, surrounded by collet-like gates that are 1 atom thick, switching flow across channels that are 1 atom thick. OK, maybe that's physically impossible... but s/atom/molecule/, and it starts sounding more reasonable. Already people have demonstrated current flow and switching along single polymer molecules, and along the relatively huge molecules that are carbon nanotubes/nanowires.
These devices have been built, albeit in relative isolation. The whole question is whether they can be manufactured cost effectively. The key to Moore's Law was not really the transistor, but 2D photo-lithography enabling what is now billions of transistors to be manufactured with far fewer steps.
Liftoff has already been mentioned as a possibility, but sounds expensive. Multilayer photolithography is a possibility - like the 3D prototyping systems that industrial design labs use, just smaller scale - but may have yield problems. Holographic litography?
I conjecture that nanofabrication is a possible way to deep 3D lithography. Nanobots executing a simple program, possibly encoded on a DNA molecule they drag behind them, with A saying "turn left", T saying "turn right", etc. Laying down atoms or molecules of materials present in an environmntal fluid. Simple programs, occasionaly interspersed with 2D photolithography for patterns too complex to be executed by these simple nanobots.
Moore disses nanotechnology. I substantially agree with him: I don't think nanobots will replace silicon VLSI. But it's possible that nonobots may *manufacture* silicon VLSI.
- JC Imprevu Lepage
Some anonymous fuck made some random comment that was modeed up on SlashDot. Said random modders, "Well, it sounded intelligent and I'd heard such a tone 40 times". Seriously, let me mimic your random fuck-ass seemingly relevent comment: Gorron's law is about as relevent as Godwin's law, in that it is a post-relevent obviostic comment which viewed in hindsight turns out to be about 95% relevent. What about the other 5%? Few comment about that 5%. Mod me up! I'm some random fucking nerd who spent 5 minutes trying to gain the approval of yoy fucking nerds... Fucking nerdathal sycophants.
...would be a story on how many times Moore's law has been declared, by Gordon and by others. Ain't the first time, baby, it won't be the last.