For many years advances in computers and electronics have been driven by Moore’s Law that states that the number of transistors per square inch doubles roughly every 18 months. People have been ready to give up on Moore’s Law. Numerous editorials have been written about Moore’s law being dead. In scenes that mimic Monty Python we may be hearing the moribund law whispering “I’m not dead, I think I’ll go for a walk”. According to news.com:
T.C. Chen, vice president of science and technology at IBM, told the assembled audience at the International Solid State Circuit conference that shrinking transistors a la Moore’s Law is good for at least ten years. It will slow a bit, but even Gordon Moore says that.
“The infusion of new materials and device structures will continue to extend CMOS (silicon) performance for a long time to come,” he said in a paper accompanying his speech. Chen, though, said that to get to that point, chip designers, manufacturing engineers and those who make the software and hardware for semiconductor manufacturing will all have to cooperate very intensely.
