5 - Outperforming Moore's Law

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Outperforming Moore's Law
J.G. Koomey, "Outperforming Moore's Law" IEEE Spectrum, spectrum.ieee.org, March 2010. [Online]. Available: http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/outperforming-moores-law. [Accessed: March 14, 2010].

Gordon Moore, a co-founder and former CEO of Intel Corporation, proposed in 1965 that the number of transistors that can be implemented in integrated circuit approximately doubles every two years, and coined his prediction "Moore's Law." In fact, the number of transistors in an IC has doubled every 18 months, on average, since 1975, but the rate of calculations as a function of kilowatt-hours has also increased nearly as quickly.

What's interesting is that the number of transistors that could be implemented on an IC increased much faster in the earliest days of computing when the state-of-the-art consisted of bulky vacuum-tubes. In a study by the author, Jonathan G. Koomey, entitled "Assessing Trends in the Electrical Efficiency of Computation Over Time" proposes that the "main technology trends that have improved performance and reduced costs -- at first better tubes, and then smaller transistors -- also reduce power use, hence the similar improvements in computational performance and electrical efficiency, at similarly rates, for such a long time."

Some computer experts cite the fact that Moore's Law has a limit, and that one day technology will permit a limited number of transistor to be able to be implemented in an IC. Koomey's study suggests that the trend of Moore's Law should continue to hold for the next five or ten years, and that we should expect further deductions in the size and power consumption of microprocessor-based devices.