Moore's Law

Gordon Moore wrote an article for the 35th anniversary issue of Electronics magazine, published in April 1965 describing the future of electronics. Integrated circuits at the time were limited to 30 transistors, but Moore’s research team was finishing a component with 60 transistors. Balancing innovation and economic factors, Moore wrote that the number of devices on a silicon chip could double each year for the next decade.

Professor Carver Mead, a colleague at California Institute of Technology, later dubbed the prediction "Moore’s Law", and the name stuck.

By 1975, the number of devices on a chip was running slightly better than predicted. Moore, however, adjusted the doubling cycle to 24 months, to compensate for expected increases in the complexity of semiconductors.

In the late 80s, an Intel executive observed that Moore’s Law was driving a doubling of computing performance every 18 months.

1965 - 30 transistor devices

1975 - 65000 transistor devices

1989 - Intel 486 processor had 1.4 million transistors

2002 - Intel P4 had 55 million transistors

See also: Central Processing Unit, Computer.