Does Moore's Law Help or Hinder the PC Industry?

An anonymous reader writes to mention two analysts recently examined Moore's Law and its effect on the computer industry. "One of the things both men did agree on was that Moore's Law is, and has been, an undeniable driving force in the computer industry for close to four decades now. They also agreed that it is plagued by misunderstanding. 'Moore's Law is frequently misquoted, and frequently misrepresented,' noted Gammage. While most people believe it means that you double the speed and the power of processors every 18 to 24 months, that notion is in fact wrong, Gammage said. 'Moore's Law is all about the density...the density of those transistors, and not what we choose to do with it.'"

Comments

Murphy's law...

[jhfry]

is more important to nerds than Moore's law anyway. Where's the /. article about it?

Murphy tells us that more bugs will be found on release day than any day previous. That your laptop will work fine until the very minute your presentation is scheduled to begin. And that backup generators are unnecessary unless you don't have them.

Who cares about Moore's law... it's just prophecy from some Nostradamus wannabe.

density of transistors?

[Red Flayer]

While most people believe it means that you double the speed and the power of processors every 18 to 24 months, that notion is in fact wrong, Gammage said. "Moore's Law is all about the density...the density of those transistors, and not what we choose to do with it."

Hmmm. Seems to me Gammage might have it backwards, the misunderstanding of Moore's Law by most people is due to the density... the density of those people.

Re:density of transistors?

[hAckz0r]

My first own version of Moore's Law states in rule one; that the 'density' of the sales force is inversely proportional to the 'core size' (N) of the sales force times e^2. [eg. 1/(N*e^2)] That is the only "density measurement" worth paying attention to when buying any new computer equipment.

My second law of 'density' states that that the PR intelligence quotient is randomly modulated by Schroedingers' cat in the next room, and is only measurable when not actually listening to it.

Re:density of transistors?

[Red Flayer]

My second law of 'density' states that that the PR intelligence quotient is randomly modulated by Schroedingers' cat in the next room, and is only measurable when not actually listening to it.

Wow, you deserve a Nobel Prize. You've figured out how to directly measure a null value!

Here's a more interesting question:

[spun]

Does Cole's law help or hinder picnics?

Discuss.

It could be...

[paladinwannabe2]

I've heard that companies plan, design, and release new processors based on Moore's Law. In other words, if it doesn't keep up with Moore's Law it's discarded, if it goes faster than Moore's Law its release is delayed (giving them more time to fine-tune it and get their manufacturing lines ready). If this is the case, then it could be hindering developement in new ways of processing (that have a payoff that takes more than 3 years to develop) and we might even be able to beat Moore's Law rather than follow it. Of course, Moore's Law is awesome enough as it is, I don't feel the need to complain about how it takes two whole years to double the effectiveness of my hardware.

Re:Both

[arktemplar]

can I have that in libraries of congress please ?
*ducks*

Re:Cost of fabs...

[Tablizer]

The cost of building and running fabs is in fact also growing exponentially. According to Rock's Law ...

Rock's Law??? Tablizer's Law: The number of tech "laws" doubles every 2 years.