The Hindu : National : Gordon Moore's new take

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 27, 2005

National

National

Gordon Moore's new take

Anand Parthasarathy

Silicon chip technology is good for 20 more years

Gordon Moore

BANGALORE: Forty years after he formulated "Moore's Law" — the computer chip industry's technology trend guideline — Gordon Moore is convinced that it is good for another 20 years at least. After that, the number of transistors you can cram on a silicon slab will hit a final obstacle: the laws of physics.

To mark four decades of his having made his famous prediction — in the now defunct American journal Electronics, — that the number of transistors on a chip roughly doubled every two years, Dr. Moore discussed the implications during an hour-long teleconference on Tuesday with the world media.

Speaking from Hawaii, he modestly disclaimed any credit for setting the trend in which computer chips have become more and more crowded — from 2,300 transistors in the world's first microchip, the Intel 4004, in 1971 to over a billion in last week's first dual-core Pentium. "The trend was obvious and the technology developments would have taken place in any case. "

Dr. Moore, who was with Fairchild Semiconductor when he wrote that April 1965 paper, went on to co-found Intel in 1968 and led the world's No 1 chip-maker as chief executive officer till 1987. At 76, he is now chairman emeritus.

"We possibly have two to three generations of technology left in the silicon chip before the dimensions of the devices become less than one atom length — and hit a physical wall. That means current chip technology based on integrated circuits are good for another 15 to 20 years... "

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National

News Update

Stories in this Section