The outline and framework of any field, technology, company is based on a certain set of rules and law. These rules and laws keep the driving force on trajectory and avoids any deviations. But many times, certain question arises that are these rules and laws which are established a long time ago, are still relevant today? Here we are going to discuss about one such law which is amid controversy, debate, and many intellectuals are questioning its relevance.
Before discussing about relevance of Moore's Law Definition, let us explain it to you that what exactly Moore’s law is in the first place and what is the history behind it. The credit for introducing Moore’s Law goes to Gordon Moore, co-founder on Intel. Back in 1965, Gordon Moore, predicted that chip improvements would double processor speeds and that overall processing performance would double every two years. That theory stuck and Moore’s law became a guideline for manufacturing of computer chips. To keep the law in layman terms, he anticipated that the number of components used in one integrated circuit will double every year. He forecasted this back in 1965 and said that this trend will follow for at least another decade. In 1975 he revised the doubling period to every two year. This observation or forecast was not based on any empirical evidence or data but since then this observation got popular as law. Almost every industry related to semiconductors, electronic devices and digital equipment’s used this law as a basic governing principle. Advancements in the field of increasing capacity of RAM, increasing number and size of pixels in digital camera is credited to Moore’s law.
Today some industry experts have different opinions about Moore’s law. They believe that Moore's Law is no longer applicable. According to them the reason behind irrelevancy of Moore’s Law in today’s world was the lack of exponential growth rate. Moore’s Law was always about rate of progress and if that mark is not achieved than how come Moore’s Law can still be relevant. In 2019, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang asserted that Moore's Law is dead and now it is more expensive and more technically challenging to double the number of transistors driving the processing power. That outlook was also asserted a year earlier by Mike Muller, chief technology officer at chip designer Arm.
On one hand where Moore’s Law is facing criticism, many experts do not think that it is going to be dead anytime soon. Intel has hit back criticizing those who claimed that Moore’s Law is dead. There is ample evidence that it is slowing down but it is not dead yet and it is not going to be for at least next 5-6 years. Many even believes that replacing Moore’s Law will have severe consequences and it will unleash chaos in the industry. Karen Panetta, an IEEE fellow, and dean of graduate engineering at Tufts University believes that Moore’s Law is still relevant in theory and it can be upgraded based on what comes out of nanobiology or quantum computing.
Moore’s Law has been in existence for past 55 years and the credit for advancements we are seeing around us today goes to it. Moore’s Law has affected everyday life and economic growth of the world from the fruits brought by semiconductor technology. With the passing time the relevance of Moore’s Law might be questioned more and more and in mean time all of us should appreciate what Moore’s Law has done for all of us.
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