The End of Moore’s Law

In 1965 Gene Moore, president of Intel, noted that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit was doubling every year and went on to project that would persist for ten years. In 1975 he downgraded that to doubling every two years and that projection held true until 2012. The rate of increase has ratcheted down again and the end of “Moore’s Law” as it’s called is now in sight. From IEEE Spectrum:

Two of the world’s largest foundries—Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and Samsung—announced in April that they’d climbed one more rung on the Moore’s Law ladder. TSMC spoke first, saying its 5-nanometer manufacturing process is now in what’s called “risk production”—the company believes it has finished the process, but initial customers are taking a chance that it will work for their designs. Samsung followed quickly with a similar announcement.

TSMC says its 5-nm process offers a 15 percent speed gain or a 30 percent improvement in power efficiency. Samsung is promising a 10 percent performance improvement or a 20 percent efficiency improvement. Analysts say these figures are in line with expectations. Compared, though, with the sometimes 50 percent improvements of a decade ago, it’s clear that Moore’s Law is not what it used to be. But judging by the investments big foundries are making, customers still think it’s worthwhile.

The number of 5nm foundries is decreasing which suggests that the research and development that might lead to 3nm manufacturing id declining as well.

For decades software developers have been relying on better, faster, cheaper hardware to redeem their inefficient designs. Today’s developers rarely have the skills necessary to produce efficient software and almost never have the time that it requires.