In recent months, Moore’s Law has become a surprisingly popular subject. First explained in 1965 by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, the law states that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double roughly every two years. This helps to explain why computers – including smartphones, tablets, and gaming consoles – keep getting more powerful as time goes on. Moore’s straightforward observation has remained accurate for fifty years and has had lasting effects that are still felt today. However, the renewed interest in the law is not due to its approaching fiftieth anniversary but instead to claims that it may be coming to an end.
What has allowed the law to hold true until now is the ongoing reduction of the manufacturing process, but further advancements in this area will soon hit the physical limits of reality. When transistors are produced at the single-atom level, there’s simply no way for them to become any smaller. As Linux creator Linus Torvalds recently stated at LinuxCon, those who expect the current pace of progress to last forever “have no understanding of physics, because we won’t be shrinking for much longer.”
The question that naturally arises is “where next?” Will the emergence of new technologies such as quantum computing signal a new era of progress, and overcome the limits of Moore’s Law? Or will some sort of technological singularity be reached before then, whereby artificial intelligence surpasses that of humans and radically transforms civilization?
Perhaps the most comprehensive exploration of the possibilities facing the industry (and indeed of Moore’s Law itself) comes in the form of a recent infographic by Fonebank.com, seen below. As well as examining the many possible outcomes of the end of the law, it details the myriad of mind-boggling statistics that have arisen as a result of its having held true for so long. For instance, how many people appreciate that their smartphone is more powerful than NASA’s Curiosity Rover currently roaming the red planet? Or that the Playstation 4 they have their eye on is over 150 times more powerful than IBM’s Deep Blue, one of the most powerful supercomputers of the 1990s?
The piece also touches on the implications of an end to the law. In the tech community, one will find no shortage of opinions on this subject. Jeremy Laird of TechRadar.com made a convincing case that the death of Moore’s Law would not be such a bad thing. He argued that an end to the ability of manufacturers to continually shrink existing technology would inevitably lead to more intelligent and efficient use of existing transistor budgets. It might perhaps even push us towards embracing the major shake-ups promised by optical or quantum computing, or chips based on graphene rather than silicon.
The significance of this question really cannot be understated. As Dean Takahashi observed, if the rate of progress afforded by Moore’s Law had ended a decade ago, we wouldn’t have had smartphones or tablets. Let that sink in. Whether you believe that computers will simply evolve in a new direction, or you adhere to the sensational ideas of a technological singularity, one cannot deny that sweeping change seems inevitable in the years to come, making it a thrilling time to be standing on the technological frontier.
Infographic credit: Fonebank.com