1965, Fairchild Semiconductor, California.
A 36-year-old engineer was writing a short article for Electronics magazine.
He drew a graph with years on the horizontal axis and transistor count per chip on the vertical axis. He plotted several data points and drew a line through them.
The line showed: Every year, the transistor count doubles.
This engineer was Gordon Moore. The article he wrote proposed the semiconductor industry’s most famous law—Moore’s Law.
60 years later, this law remains astonishingly accurate.
Moore’s Observation #
Moore was then Fairchild Semiconductor’s R&D director. He observed several generations of chips his company produced:
- 1959: About 1 transistor per chip
- 1962: About 10 transistors per chip
- 1963: About 30 transistors per chip
- 1964: About 60 transistors per chip
- 1965: About 100 transistors per chip
He found that transistor count approximately doubled every year.
Moore predicted in his article: This trend would continue for at least ten years. By 1975, each chip would have 65,000 transistors.
Many thought this was fantasy at the time. But in 1975, Moore’s prediction came true.
The Revision of Moore’s Law #
In 1975, Moore revised his prediction.
He re-analyzed the data and found the doubling rate was slowing. He changed the prediction from “doubling every year” to “doubling every two years.”
This is what we today call Moore’s Law: The number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18-24 months.
This revised law has held true for the 50 years since.
What Does Moore’s Law Mean? #
Moore’s Law is superficially about transistor count, but it actually describes the growth of computer performance.
More transistors mean stronger performance. More transistors mean greater computing power, larger cache, more functional units.
Smaller transistors mean faster speed. Smaller transistors switch faster, enabling higher clock frequencies.
Smaller transistors mean lower power consumption. Smaller transistors consume less power and generate less heat.
More transistors mean lower cost. Although chip manufacturing becomes increasingly complex, the cost per transistor keeps falling.
Combined, Moore’s Law means: Every two years, you can buy a computer with double the performance for the same price.
This is why your phone today is faster than the most powerful supercomputer from 20 years ago.
The Power of Exponential Growth #
Moore’s Law describes exponential growth. The power of exponential growth is often underestimated.
Imagine a piece of paper 0.1mm thick. Fold it once, thickness becomes 0.2mm. Fold it twice, 0.4mm.
If you fold it 42 times, what’s the thickness?
The answer: More than the distance from Earth to the Moon.
This is the power of exponential growth.
Moore’s Law is the same. From Intel 4004’s 2,300 transistors in 1971 to Apple M3 Ultra’s 134 billion transistors today, that’s about a 58 million-fold increase.
If car efficiency grew at the same rate, today you could drive around the Earth on a drop of gas.
The Impact of Moore’s Law #
Moore’s Law has had profound impact on the entire tech industry:
Hardware Design: Engineers know that in two years, chip performance will double, so they can design more complex, more powerful products.
Software Development: Programmers know hardware will get faster, so they can write more complex, feature-rich software.
Business Models: Companies know electronics will get cheaper and more powerful, so they can plan long-term product roadmaps.
Investment Decisions: Investors know the semiconductor industry has stable growth expectations, so they’re willing to invest huge sums.
Moore’s Law became a “self-fulfilling prophecy” for the entire tech industry—everyone believed it, so everyone worked toward it, and it actually came true.
The Limits of Moore’s Law #
But can Moore’s Law continue forever?
Physically, transistors can’t shrink infinitely. When transistors reach atomic scale, quantum effects interfere with normal operation.
Economically, chip manufacturing is getting more complex and requiring larger investments. An advanced chip factory now costs over $20 billion.
In recent years, Moore’s Law has indeed been slowing. The transistor doubling cycle has extended from 18 months to 24 months or longer.
But engineers have found new approaches:
3D Stacking: Stacking transistors vertically instead of spreading them flat. TSMC’s 3nm process already uses FinFET (Fin Field-Effect Transistor), and GAA (Gate-All-Around) technology is advancing.
Specialized Accelerators: Using dedicated chips to accelerate specific tasks, like AI inference and graphics processing.
New Materials: Exploring materials beyond silicon, like carbon nanotubes and graphene.
Moore’s Law may end, but computing power growth won’t stop.
Intel’s Rise and Fall #
Moore co-founded Intel with Robert Noyce in 1968. Intel became the most faithful practitioner of Moore’s Law.
From the 1970s to 2000s, Intel dominated the PC processor market. “Intel Inside” became a household slogan.
But in the 2010s, Intel began falling behind. In mobile chips, Intel lost to ARM architecture. In advanced manufacturing, Intel lost to TSMC and Samsung.
In 2023, Intel announced it would spin off its chip manufacturing business and open foundry services to other companies. This is Intel’s biggest transformation in history.
Moore passed away in 2023 at age 94. He witnessed the entire process of Moore’s Law from proposal to slowdown.
Beyond Moore’s Law #
Moore’s Law describes hardware performance growth. But computer development has other dimensions of growth:
Storage Capacity: Hard drive and flash memory capacity growth rates even exceed Moore’s Law.
Network Bandwidth: Internet bandwidth growth rates also exceed Moore’s Law.
Algorithm Efficiency: Software algorithm improvements can sometimes bring greater performance gains than hardware.
Data Scale: The amount of data humans produce is growing exponentially, driving AI development.
These growths reinforce each other, forming a positive feedback loop for technological development.
Next Step: Operating Systems #
Hardware is getting more powerful, but hardware alone can’t be used directly. We need software to control hardware.
The earliest computers had no operating systems; programmers operated hardware directly. Later, people developed operating systems to manage hardware resources and schedule program execution.
The development of operating systems was key to computers transforming from professional tools to mass products.
Tomorrow, we’ll discuss the origins of operating systems—the birth of UNIX.
Today’s Key Concepts #
Moore’s Law An observation proposed by Gordon Moore in 1965: The number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every 18-24 months. This law predicted the exponential growth of computer performance and guided semiconductor industry development for decades.
Exponential Growth A growth pattern where quantity doubles every fixed period. Exponential growth starts slowly but becomes extremely fast later. Moore’s Law describes exponential growth.
FinFET (Fin Field-Effect Transistor) A 3D transistor structure where the gate wraps around the channel like a fin. FinFET can achieve better control in a smaller area and is one of the key technologies extending Moore’s Law.
Discussion Questions #
- Moore’s Law has continued for 60 years. How much longer do you think it can continue? Why?
- If Moore’s Law stopped tomorrow and computer performance stopped growing, what impact do you think it would have on the tech industry?
Tomorrow’s Preview: The Origins of Operating Systems—how did UNIX go from a small project at Bell Labs to the cornerstone of the software world?