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Intel Hardware

Understanding Moore's Law 179

Posted by timothy from the in-the-name-of-the-law dept.
S. Blocher writes "Ars Technica has a great article up, 'Understanding Moore's Law', that I think most geeks should read. The misrepresentation of Moore's Law in the media has always been a real pet peeve of mine, and this article does a great job of looking at the flipside of the 'bigger and faster' thesis to show how the Law isn't really just about doubling computer power."
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Understanding Moore's Law More

Understanding Moore's Law

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  • Moore's ??? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nanojath ( 265940 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:04PM (#5347026) Homepage Journal
    It seems like a good start would be to stop calling it a "law," a term that has some kind of meaning, in a scientific sense. Exactly where that line gets drawn may be a little fuzzy, but I think it's fairly obvious that Moore's observations don't make the grade.

    • Re:Moore's ??? (Score:1, Redundant)

      by Mipmap ( 569611 )

      How about Moore's Prophecy?

      Kind of catchy in this day and age.

    • Re:Moore's ??? (Score:4, Funny)

      by RyansPrivates ( 634385 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:15PM (#5347147)
      I agree. Maybe they should change the name to Moore's Code... -.-
    • By that same criteria, shouldn't we stop referring to "Newton's Law" as a "law" since it's fairly obvious that Newton's observations don't make the grade?

      • Re:Moore's ??? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Dr.Enormous ( 651727 )
        Nonsense. "Moore's Law", such as it is, tells us only what may be possible--if we take appropriate action. Newton's Law tells us what is true, and will continue to be true no matter what we do.

        • Re:Moore's ??? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Oculus Habent ( 562837 ) <oculus.habent@gma i l . c om> on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:30PM (#5347276) Journal
          Moore's Observation?
          Moore's Theorum?
          Moore's Speculation? - this would have been good early on...
          Moore's Principle?
          Moore's Equation? - something for the big math fans to complain about...
          Moore's Paradigm? - something for the cliche in all of us...
          Moore's Model?
          Moore's Formula?

          I kind of like Moore's Determinant, but it's not very accurate.

          But if we wander around changing things because we think they aren't right, that makes us revisionists. And revisionists are doomed to experience history for what they are sure is the first time.

          • Re:Moore's ??? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by kfg ( 145172 )
            It isn't a speculation because it was based on observation, and the fact that the factor would change over time was included.

            It isn't a theorem, again because it was based on observation. It isn't provable.

            So either observation or theory would have been appropriate.

            We like our little "Laws" though ( such as Murphy's), so, like it or not, law it is, and law it shall remain.

            Law's are so comforting to the masses, don'cha know. They eliminate all the messy conditional shit real life is made up of.

            KFG

          • Re:Moore's ??? (Score:4, Interesting)

            by fishbowl ( 7759 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:49PM (#5347417)
            "The Hypothetical Moore Curve"

            Is it testable?

            Is his research repeatable?

            What studies have been published to support the hypothesis?

            What was tested, and how? What controls were used?

            Moore was making an economic projection in order to formulate a business plan. He was not establishing a new field of theoretical physics.
            If we had to, and if we could discount the variables of economic incentive and R&D time, we could try to directly approach the theoretical limitations. Maybe find something other than silicon and transistors that will work better than the semiconductors we use today. (We only have made incremental improvements on the same basic structures).

            The true appeal of "Moore's Law" is that we have become accustomed to seeing doublings of power in our computing devices. So much so, that any consumer product that doesn't promise twice the speed/capacity of what came before it, won't be all that exciting to us.

            There are plenty of industries where a fraction of a percent increase in production will make you a hero, even in electronics engineering.


          • Moore's Extrapolation?
          • Moore's Epidemiology?

      • Re:Moore's ??? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by kfg ( 145172 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:33PM (#5347303)
        Yes, we should, and in fact, in reality if not in practice, we already have.

        No scientist with half a head on his shoulders really thinks of laws as "laws" any more. They're observations of behaviour reduced to a mathmatical form for the purposes of understanding and prediction.

        That is why it's Eintstein's *Theory* of Special Relativity, even though it is an even more accurate rendering of Newton's "Law." We gave up laws a century or so ago.

        While at times language changes distressingly fast there are times when it seems impossible to change at all.

        This is one of those times.

        I'm afraid the resulting confussion, allowing President's to say dumb shit like "It's only a theory," may well never subside.

        KFG

        • Re:Moore's ??? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Planesdragon ( 210349 ) <<su.enotsleetseltsac> <ta> <todhsals>> on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:57PM (#5347465) Homepage Journal
          That is why it's Eintstein's *Theory* of Special Relativity, even though it is an even more accurate rendering of Newton's "Law." We gave up laws a century or so ago.

          I beg to disagree.

          Newton's laws are simple, definitive, and we're unlike to find anything that contradicts them--relativity deals with the shape of space, not how objects react to motion, and quantum mechanics, as far as they effect "objects", are just another force.

          Classic Physics are undisputable--they can be observed by anyone with about thirty minutes of free time (or less). Relativity, on the other hand, has a rather smaller set of supporting data, and thus calling it a "law" isn't quite accurate just yet.

          While at times language changes distressingly fast there are times when it seems impossible to change at all.

          Most scientific laws are hundreds of years old--they've withstood the test of time. Relativity and other modern theories haven't withstood the test of time yet, but in a few centuries we'll be talking about "Einstein's Laws."

          I'm afraid the resulting confussion, allowing President's to say dumb shit like "It's only a theory,"

          You mean evolution, I assume.

          The principle that living creatures evolve is observable, uncontestable, and hundreds of years old. High School students can test it with rabbits. Current evolution should be taught as and called "The Law of Evolution."

          Now, when biologists start speculating about the fossil record, species relations, and where life came from, they're on territory that they can never prove to have a definite answer, and thus they should either use the same terminology that historians, not labcoat scientists use, or they should stick with "theory."

          • Re:Moore's ??? (Score:5, Informative)

            by forand ( 530402 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @06:15PM (#5347602) Homepage
            Newton's laws are simple, definitive, and we're unlike to find anything that contradicts them--relativity deals with the shape of space, not how objects react to motion, and quantum mechanics, as far as they effect "objects", are just another force.

            Classic Physics are undisputable--they can be observed by anyone with about thirty minutes of free time (or less). Relativity, on the other hand, has a rather smaller set of supporting data, and thus calling it a "law" isn't quite accurate just yet.
            I beg to differ with you: GENERAL Relativity deals with the curvature of spacetime, SPECIAL relativity is base on very few postulates the main of which is that the speed of light is constant in all frames. This has very real and observable consequences, like the fact that you cannot transmit information faster than the speed of light, this affects your everyday life.

            Classical Physics is undisputed within a certain range of energies/time difference, but you cannot explain light causing a measurable pressure with newtons laws nor can you explain doppler shifts exactly.

          • Re:Moore's ??? (Score:2, Insightful)

            by kfg ( 145172 )
            You are incorrect. Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity is a fundamental "Law" of motion just as observable as Newton's, and in fact makes up a refinment of those "laws."

            Newton's Law is nothing more than special case of Einstein's Theory.

            You may assume anything you wish, but I was refering to Relativity, not Evolution.

            The Theory of evolution should not be taught as a law for the same reason Relativity should not be taught as a law.

            There are *no* laws. Only observation and theory.

            KFG

          • Re:Moore's ??? (Score:4, Informative)

            by jpmorgan ( 517966 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @08:38PM (#5348639) Homepage
            Newton's laws are simple, definitive, and we're unlike to find anything that contradicts them.

            Yup, we're unlikely to find anything that contradicts them. Like, you know, a century's worth of experimental physics. But ignoring the pesky 20th century, no, you're not going to find anything to contradict them.

            Newton's 'Laws' are simply convenient approximations. They tend to work quite reasonably in most circumstances, but they most certainly are not laws. A law is something that will always be true, everywhere; Newton's 'laws' break down as soon as you try to do anything unusual.

            They're called laws because of historical prescedent (back in the day people played fast and loose with their terminology), but it's really quite disingenious.

            And again, while neo-Darwinian Evolution is an incredibly good and compelling theory, it's going to remain just a theory until someone invents a time machine. While experiments can be performed to demonstrate small phylogenic changes, evolution discusses tremendous change over tremendous time-scales, and while it seems quite reasonable to believe that you can simply generalise observations about butterflies and rabbits out to millions of years (:-)), you can't exactly proove it, which is the point.

            Calling something a law when it really isn't does a disservice to science; you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. One of the most important things students can learn about science is that regardless of how strong or weak the evidence is for one theory, there's always the possibility for an alternate explanation, and to be able to judge the relative merits of the theories based on their supporting evidence and their implications.

            • Re:Moore's ??? (Score:2, Informative)

              by Hewligan ( 202585 )

              "Newton's laws are simple, definitive, and we're unlike to find anything that contradicts them.

              "Yup, we're unlikely to find anything that contradicts them. Like, you know, a century's worth of experimental physics. But ignoring the pesky 20th century, no, you're not going to find anything to contradict them."

              Except, of course, that you're wrong. Planesdragon was correct when he said that nothing had contradicted Newton's laws. The people who claim otherwise simply don't understand Newton's Laws.

              (1) A body remains at rest or travels with constant velocity unless acted upon by an outside force.

              True. Nothing in either quantum or relativistic physics contradict this. They do expand upon the what a force actually is, but they in no way contradict it.

              (2) The force acting on a body is equal to its rate of change of momentum.

              Trivially true. This isn't really a law, so much as a definition - in fact, the definition of a force. As a definition it can't disproven.

              (3) Every action has an equal but opposite reaction.

              True. Much like the first law, the implications of this are complicated by quantum and relativistic effects, but the law itself remains unchanged.

              So, having stood for centuries, they certainly look like they deserve being called laws to me.

          • > Current evolution should be taught as and called "The Law of Evolution."

            I'll stick with "Theory," on the grounds that one meaning is "a systematic statement of principles involved." That is broader than "Law," and better describes the standings of both evolution and relativity.

            As for the "it's only a theory" people, I doubt that calling evolution a "law" will change their minds.
          • Newton's laws are simple, definitive, and we're unlike to find anything that contradicts them--relativity deals with the shape of space, not how objects react to motion, and quantum mechanics, as far as they effect "objects", are just another force.
            My most memorable day at physics class at Ohio State University was when my (nobel prize nominated) professor converted Einstien's theory into a Taylor series expansion equation, dropped off part of it (which translates into a loss of precision), and converted that into Newton's equations. You obviously don't understand relativity since you are getting special and general relativity confused. Newton was wrong. If you zoom in on a parabola enough it looks like a straight line. That's kind of what Newton did in comparison to Einstien. That is not to say there isn't something more accurate special relativity, but we don't know it yet and probably won't have tools to measure it. We do actually use special relativity. If it weren't for that our GPS system would not be nearly as accurate. This is why I moderated you as a troll. You stated a falsehood as if you were certain. Though it seems you believed what you said, there is no moderation option for "Wrong".
            • Newton was wrong.

              Well, there's 'wrong' and there's 'wrong' it's a sliding scale. While it's true that he was 'wrong' in the narrow sense of the word, he got most of it right. Certainly much more so than other's before him. Almost all everyday phenomena can be readily explained by his 'laws'.

              Einstein didn't so much prove Newton wrong, as proving him incomplete. Which is a different kind of 'wrong' than invalidating the whole theory/law, and instead state the oposite (c.f phlogistone).

              Assimov wrote a nice essay on the subject: The Relativity of Wrong [answersinscience.org] which puts this more eloquently than I have.

          • The 'it's only a theory' argument has also been used by people who want to deny that global warming is real. Of course, it's only a theory that any of a particular administration's actions will have a particular effect, and usually a much more tenative theory than global warming, but that certainly hasn't detered our good congresmen and senetors.
    • Perhaps, but it's been common practice to call these things laws since "Murphy's law"...

      I guess "you are under arrest for breaking Murphy's Law" would be kinda useful phrase, come to think of it.

    • It seems like a good start would be to stop calling it a "law," a term that has some kind of meaning, in a scientific sense.

      Fermat's Last Theorem isn't a theorem and Newton's Laws aren't universal laws (they break under certain conditions). Misnomers occur all the time, but yeah it is an annoying buzz-term.

    • Moore's Paradox... (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by Remik ( 412425 )
      ...already exists, in philosophy, for anyone that's wondering. It is a statement of the form:

      A is and I don't believe A.

      Such as: It's raining and I don't believe it.

      The paradox lies in questioning the belief in a fact you've already attested to in the same statement.

      -R
    • I have asked numerous people and no one has been able to answer this question.

      Why does Moore get credit for this "law" and the "Moore machine"?

      A.M. Turning in Mind, October 1950 p433-460 discussed both his predictions on the growth of computers (p442) and had diagrams and equations for what is now called in computer engineering a "Moore machine" (p440).

      I will agree with anyone who says that Moore refined Turning's ideas. The way Turning predicted growth is hard to use as any sort of "law." However, the state diagram in Turning's article is pretty clear. I would call it a Turning machine rather than a Moore machine if I had my say.

      Maybe someone here can finally provide me with a reason why Moore gets all the credit for Turning's ideas.

      To me it seems clear that Moore had read Turning's article 15 years prior and used it as a basis for his ideas. Should Turning be given some credit?
      • "Maybe someone here can finally provide me with a reason why Moore gets all the credit for Turning's ideas."

        Moore was talking specifically about the number of devices per square inch on a single substrate. In other words, he was talking about integrated circuit semiconductor fabrication technology and the economics involved. Turing was dealing in much broader concepts.


    • It seems like a good start would be to stop calling it a "law," a term that has some kind of meaning, in a scientific sense.

      Oh, jeez. No one ever actually thought it was like a law of nature. ('Cept you, I guess.)

    • It seems like a good start would be to stop calling it a "law,"

      Moore's "Rule of Thumb" doesn't have quite the same ring...

    • It seems like a good start would be to stop calling it a "law," a term that has some kind of meaning, in a scientific sense.

      "Law" isn't a scientific term. Science deals with theories that try to describe the world. You seem to imply there are some "special" theories that get promoted to "Law", but that's hardly scientific. Some of these things get names, and the names sometimes include "Law". But that's just a name, it doesn't mean they're different from theories that get names with "Theory" in it.

      For instance, the "Laws of Thermodynamics" are a theory. A great theory.

      Anyway, of course Moore's thing is just never going to be true for a long period, it's not even a try to describe the physical world. It's not as if it's still going to be true a billion years after the last human died. I call it "Moore's short term observation".

  • The article and the predictions that it made have since become the stuff of legend, and like most legends it has gone through a number of changes in the telling and retelling.

    Just curious, but has anyone ever even heard of this before? It's very interesting, but the article was written in 1965, and I don't think current geeks know a lot about this. I certainty didn't
    • Are you joking? I thought everyone had heard of Moore's law. I never really thought of it as a law, but more as a suggestion. Then again I've never really read his original article in much detail.

      What the press, and a lot of other people, seem to do is apply it to things like hard drives. Hard drives do seem to follow a similar principle, but i'm not sure if it's on the same scale as Moore's law.
    • Google "Moore's Law" and you'll find over 87k pages which reference the law...parsed down, it is likely to be less than 50k total pages, but up to page 12 of the query results provide direct correlation to the term and it's subject.

      Gordon Moore is one of the more visionary and less well known folks in modern geek-dom...

    • Re:Just curious... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      moore's "law" became popularized in the 1980s as processing power began to grow on the desktop so it is the stuff of legend. unfortunately it is equally legendary in the number of times it has been warped to fit predictions.
    • yes, I think Hannibal's point was that while many people do know of Moore's Law (in general terms), very few know what Moore actually meant and tend to oversimplify/overgeneralize it

  • In typical /. fashion (Score:5, Funny)

    by BoomerSooner ( 308737 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:08PM (#5347061) Homepage Journal
    I'll comment w/o reading the article.

    Roger Moore's Law is: you get more chicks when you are James Bond than when you're Roger Moore. That's it right?

  • The 'M' laws (Score:5, Funny)

    by Shamashmuddamiq ( 588220 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:08PM (#5347062)

    Microsoft's law: what you get when you put Moore's law and Murphy's law together.
    • Microsoft's law: what you get when you put Moore's law and Murphy's law together.

      The number of critical bugs doubles every 18 months?

  • Moores law in action? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Neck_of_the_Woods ( 305788 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:08PM (#5347068) Journal

    For every news artical about Moore's Law, there will be a two fold reduction in the amount of Moore's Law that is explained. Which at some point it becomes impossible to comprehend the difference between Moore's Law and Artical Fodder about why you need a new computer.

    • This reminds me of an ad that's played on our local radio for a high-end audio retailer:

      There's two types of salesmen in other audio stores...the Specialist, who knows more and more about less and less until finally, he knows EVERYTHING about nothing.

      And the Generalist, who knows less and less about more and more until finally, he knows nothing about everything.

      I laugh when I hear it still because it's so damn true sometimes.

    • I dunno, I count several hundred Slashdot posts already...

      Oh wait, you said *explained*... :)

  • The law is simple (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Moore is better, lesse is worse.
  • Really? How would Intel realistically expect to generate revenue if they didn't have such a "law" as a guideline?

  • Cowboy Neal's Corollary to the Moore's Law (Score:4, Funny)

    by dracken ( 453199 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:12PM (#5347108) Homepage
    The rate at which the Moore's law is quoted in lectures and articles doubles every 18 months

  • It's not a law (Score:5, Insightful)

    by intermodal ( 534361 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:12PM (#5347110) Homepage Journal
    it is a theory, or a hypothesis, or an observation. A law in the scientific jargon must be something which is:

    6 a : a statement of an order or relation of phenomena that so far as is known is invariable under the given conditions b : a general relation proved or assumed to hold between mathematical or logical expressions

    Moore's Law only holds true to a point. There comes a time when only so much can be fit on that piece of silicon. The term conjecture might also be applicable.

    • It's not even that (Score:3, Interesting)

      by siskbc ( 598067 )
      it is a theory, or a hypothesis, or an observation. A law in the scientific jargon must be something which is:

      6 a : a statement of an order or relation of phenomena that so far as is known is invariable under the given conditions b : a general relation proved or assumed to hold between mathematical or logical expressions

      I agree,and I would actually give Moore's Law less credit than that. I would infer from your definition that, generally, a "law" is something fundamental and immutable that arises from the underlying nature of certain phenomena. Boyle's gas law is a good example: increase the temperature of a gas at constant pressure, and it expands. This is fundamental and can be explained as such.

      Moore's "law" is just a relationship built from Intel's marketing engine and economics. Let's say I was rich and decided to start marketing cheap, low-defect silicon. Moore's "law" suddenly changes.

      Basically, Moore's law could change at any time (and has) if Intel decides to accelerate their R&D facilities. Or if they decide to invest more in silicon fab facilities. Or if they decided to raise their prices, allowing them to get a lower yield of smaller-featured chips.

      When you get right down to it, Moore's law only holds as long as Intel wants it too. Or, if they get more competition that forces them to accelerate their chip release schedule (like the last 5 years thanks to AMD).

      • Re:It's not even that (Score:3, Interesting)

        by asparagus ( 29121 )
        You act as though doubling transistor count each year is a parlor trick.

        Study modern processor design. Watch as quantum mechanics beats the crap out of frequency interference and then the two of them gang up on chemistry. After a certain point, the science involved becomes magic.

        Recognize Moore's work for how it helps Intel focus on the future. Board meeting: "We have an invention that will multiply preformance by 10x in 5 years." Back of envelope: 2^5 = 32. "I'm sorry, but that's not impressive enough. You'll need to boost preformance by 30x if you want funding."

        AMD: "If we want to surpass Intel in the next five years, this is where we must be."

        Sure, you could start subsidising the manufacture of silicon on the side and jump into the industry. However, if you want to make it profitable, if you want to succeed on an engineering basis, then you're going to have to play by Moore's rules.

        Think you can do it? Today? Tomorrow? Intel has for the last thirty years.

        -Brett
        • This may be. However, Moore's Trend is not immutable. at some point, there will be either a slowdown in improvement or a considerable jump. Personally, I would rather them try to make some cool running 1.8 GHz chips with better efficiency than press onward towards the double digits. Moore's Trend as a whole is not beneficial to the industry, in the same way the MHz Myth as it is known is a detriment.
    • It's a law.
      Law (noun) [m-w.com]
      "6 a : a statement of an order or relation of phenomena that so far as is known is invariable under the given conditions b : a general relation proved or assumed to hold between mathematical or logical expressions"

      note: so far as is known ... assumed to hold

      However, if you're one of those people who thinks there's a difference, it is not a 'Law':

      (ibid)
      "2 a often capitalized : the revelation of the will of God set forth in the Old Testament"

      Hopefully this will clear up the confusion surrounding this issue.
    • There comes a time when only so much can be fit on that piece of silicon.

      Couldn't resist replying since i'm on your foes list for god knows what.

      Moores law doesn't just apply to silicone, it applies to integrated circuit design in general. If moores law was based purely on the manufacturing techniques at the time, of course it wouldn't hold true in 20 to 30 years.

      What we've seen though is a change in manufacturing processes, and with the research going on in quantum computing, light computing, and biological computing, I would speculate that we will see "moores trend" (calling it that because it's not really a law) will continue on course as these advancements are made.

      Take for example our use of Si (silicon) for every IC designed today. We use it because of it's strength, and low electrical conductivity. It's a rather large atom though, and we will run out of space eventually using it.
      http://www.cs.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/nph-pertab/tab/e lemen t/C

      But wait! Right above Si on the periodic table of elements is C (carbon) which is roughly .525 the size of a Si atom.
      http://www.cs.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/nph-pertab/tab /elemen t/C

      Now why don't we use carbon based IC's? Well for one thing, carbon does not play well with itself unless you use a lot of heat and pressure (Carbon melting point is 3727c vs Si's 1410c). Secondly we haven't really mass produce the carbon buckyballs/nanotube enough where we could actually use them in place of Si.

      Now where was I going with this... Oh yeah..

      Basically Moores law will continue to hold true as long as material manufacting keeps up. Silicon has nada to do with it.

      • Moores law doesn't just apply to silicone....

        When applied to silicone, it is formulated as follows:
        "The size of Britney Spears's breasts doubles every 18 years."
      • hm. I don't remember why you were on the foes list, but you seem intelligent enough not to be there. removed. And i must say, i agree wholly with your post, but maintain that if it were not for Moore's Trend, one of two things would have happened:

        1) chips would run cooler and slower than present, but would still be more efficient than their contemporaries (such as comparing a Astro or Crusoe to its speedmates)

        or

        2) chipmakers would be ignoring this rate and going potentially higher than Moore claimed.

        I may be wrong, YMMV, etc.
      • Carbon and silicon have a slight difference -it's a network molecule. If you look at CO2, for example, it looks something like O-C-O, while a Si02 looks more like O-Si-O-Si-O-Si, and so on. It forms many many more sigma bonds. That's why it's such a great conductor.
    • Just not in the sense of a scientific law. It is more like Murphy's law, Parkinson's Law (Work expands to fill the time available) Clarke's Third Law (Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic) or Beauregard's Law (When you're up to your nose, keep your mouth shut)

  • On my tenth whip. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by blair1q ( 305137 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:14PM (#5347134) Journal
    Haven't we been beating this dead horse long enough?

    Admonitions against misinterpreting Moore's law are about 3 minutes less old than Moore's law itself, and will probably be the part of Moore's law that outlives the law by 20 years.

  • That's not right.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cybermace5 ( 446439 ) <g.ryan@macetech.com> on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:16PM (#5347160) Homepage Journal
    Moore's Law is so perennially protean because its putative formulator never quite gave it a precise formulation.

    I tried to read further, but started twitching uncontrollably. How about Mace's Law: "The skill of tech writers halves, and their pride doubles, every 12 months."

    I always gave about the same credence to both Moore's Law and Murphy's Law.

    Ok, I finished the article. I learned some history, saw some graphs, and care not one bit more about Moore and his infernal Law.
    • LOL! It was about 3am when I wrote that line, and I was completely fried and just wanted to be done with the article. You're right, though, that sentence (and some of the other parts of the intro) is completely overwritten... or something.

      Oh well, at least the rest of the article (hopefully) doesn't appear to take itself quite as seriously as the intro :0)

      Jon

      • Well, I figured I wasn't the first to cast a stone, so I overlooked my guiltiness.

        Many of us have written worse during a caffeine-crazed schoolwork rampage, though we were paying good money for the chance. ;-)

  • A practical application of Moore's Law... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kevinatilusa ( 620125 ) <kcostell@@@gmail...com> on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:31PM (#5347282)
    Is to give you an excuse to avoid work. See http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9912202 for a paper (in PDF) describing this
    • Hmmm, tongue in cheek ? but some economists make this same argument against cleaning up the environment now --- why should we husband resources for the use of future generations when those generations will already be wealthier than us because of technological progress? If we let the economy grow as fast as possible and improve technology without regard to the environment, people in the future will be even richer and even better equipped to invest in environmental clean up.

      I wish I was making this up. I'm not.

  • There was already a Slashdot story about this from a different source this year. This article covers exactly the same territory, and was most likely inspired by it.

    • Re:This again? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Hannibal_Ars ( 227413 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:39PM (#5347347) Homepage
      If you're referring to that recent Red Herring article, my article was indeed "inspired" by it in the sense that I thought it was sensationlistic crap and I just couldn't take it anymore. For more info, see the news blurb that announces the article:

      http://arstechnica.com/archive/news/1045747027.h tm l
      • If you're referring to that recent Red Herring article, my article was indeed "inspired" by it in the sense that I thought it was sensationlistic crap and I just couldn't take it anymore. For more info, see the news blurb that announces the article

        Ah, good response. It would have been nice to see this mentioned in the Slashdot lead-in. Good article, too.
  • that every 7 months (or something like that) the number of transistors on a chip will double.

    He didn't say just how long his "law" would last, however. He made the huge assumption that intel would keep on keepin on with their technology breakthroughs, and if they perfect that terahertz transistor technology, THEN Moore's law will stay in effect for a little longer

    But, something that most people don't take into account (and moore probably didn't either) is the fact that we don't NEED faster computers. We want them. You don't need more than a P4 to do just about anything, but becuase of games that require horsepower, you are required to buy them. Of course theres the server side of things, which is a totally different ballgame. YES, they DO need faster computers as workloads get heavier.

  • [n8r.n]'s law (Score:5, Funny)

    by natron 2.0 ( 615149 ) <ndpeters79@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:48PM (#5347407) Homepage Journal
    My new law/observation/theory/detriment/prophesy is:

    Every 18 [eighteen] months a new faster and more powerful processor is released to the masses that makes my 1Ghz seem obsolete.

    Not a sermon, just a thought.

  • Is it not even simpler? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by spellcheckur ( 253528 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:52PM (#5347435)
    This article is useful for a technical understanding of Moore's "law," but I don't believe it pays enough mind to one of the factors that I believe to be possibly the most significant factor in keeping it going: the economically self-perpetuating nature of it.

    Quite simply, companies expect Moore's law to remain true. Software companies plan product lines in anticipation of processor capability doubling every n years. Processors are going to get improve at this rate, therefore we know how quickly bus performance and peripheral performance need to improve.

    Semiconductor manufacturers know this. They plan product lines in a Moore's-law-consistent manner (not necessarily explicity, but surely as a matter of economics). If they're a little behind the curve, more money gets put into keeping up with it... or somebody else steps up and keeps it true. If they're at or ahead, they hold the course.

    If someone were to introduce a processor that was 10x the density/speed of current processors, don't you think more resources would then go into peripheral design/heat management/software development to utilize the improvments, rather than continuing to focus on improving the processor?

    The reason the law has held so long and seems to be so consistent is that it sets everyone's expectations, and people plan towards those expectations. Not less, not more.

    You've all been Jedi mind tricked.

  • Moore's law - it doesn't actually exist! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by M0b1u5 ( 569472 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:57PM (#5347471) Homepage
    http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_11/tuomi/inde x.html This is much better article IMO. It doesn't say Moore's Law isn't a powerful force for technical and social engineering, or that it doesn't drive the PC and high-tech industry, but the simple truth is that Moore's Law doesn't exist as a law at all - and the only place it does exist is in the minds of journalists!

  • Yield hasn't been the problem for a while (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @05:57PM (#5347475) Homepage
    That article overemphasizes yield issues. Yield really hasn't been a limiting factor for a while. At one time, fabs were yield-limited. Today, one hears quiet boasting that some fab is producing most wafers with no flaws. Detailed yield information is very closely held in the industry, but it leaks out.

    This has been achieved by getting a more and more detailed understanding of the processes and eliminating the fundamental sources of the problems. The costs of doing this are immense, but it works. It's striking to look at micrographs of chips today - everything looks so good. No ragged edges anywhere. Think for a moment about what that means. In some of those pictures, you can see atoms, and they're in the right places. Atoms.

    It's not like the bad old days of the "purple plague", ceramics with traces of radioactive minerals, or the HP fab with the 4% yield.

  • they'd cost $25, get $1 Million MPG, travel 2000 MPH,

    and fit in the palm of your hands.
    • they'd cost $25, get $1 Million MPG, travel 2000 MPH, and fit in the palm of your hands.

      If I was a girl, this sounds a lot like something ELSE that'd be in the palm of my hand.

      *click* brrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmm

  • Moore's Law is a special case (Score:4, Informative)

    by imnoteddy ( 568836 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @06:27PM (#5347689)
    Moore's Law is a special case of a concept known in manufacturing as the
    experience curve. To quote an article from the Harvard Business Review
    "Building stategy on the experience curve" (HBR March-April 1985, pg 143):
    Literally thousands of studies have shown that production costs usually decline

    10% to 30% with each doubling of cunulated output.

    The author then presents a graph showing that Dynamic RAM costs fell at 30%
    per every doubling of cumulated output from 1976 to 1984. Besides semiconductors,
    the author gives examples from the chemical industry and also the Model T Ford.

  • BS Alert (Score:1)

    by xp ( 146294 )
    Moore's Law is so perennially protean because its putative formulator never quite gave it a precise formulation.

    This sentence in the article triggered my bullshit alert.

    • Okay, here's that sentence in plain language: Moore's law keeps turning up because it's vague enough that you can't really prove it or disprove it.
  • ..that Motorola is somewhat immune to the ravaging effects of Moore's Law.

    How did they escape "Moore's" clutches, and more importantly, how do we get them back in?
  • Coincidentally, I just today received my 11 x 17 inch print of this Zippy cartoon [zippythepinhead.com] from April 2001, signed by Griffy himself. Destined for my office wall, of course.
  • my pet peeve is people who pompously pontificate about meaningless crap like Moore's Law.

  • Media mistakes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20, 2003 @07:14PM (#5348057)
    "The misrepresentation of Moore's Law in the media has always been a real pet peeve..."

    Is it possible that Americans have come to mistrust the media, because the media reporters no longer understand 99% of the subjects on which they report?

    Earlier ./ articles have mentioned the increasing specialization of society as a source of many problems and changes. Is the inability of the media to accurately report on subjects yet another product of this specialization? Both the reduced ability of the reporter to understand technical information and the reduced ability of Americans to spot (and hold media responsible for) incorrect/bad/misleading reporting have, perhaps, allowed the problem to bloom enormously.

    Perhaps Moore's Law is inversely applicable to media reliability. Every two years the reliability and accuracy of the media is halved. Every two years the ability of the average American to spot the innacuracies is reduced by half.
  • You gotta love Ars. In a day and age when some people purporting to be geeks still belive that a "G4 is up to twice as fast as the fastest Pentium 4," and when tech articles and writing (even in the Linux world, and in Maximum PC) have been incredibly dumbed down, Ars Technica still isn't afraid to have in depth, technical articles. Their articles have words like "pipeline" and "execution unit" and their CPU articles (in particular the PC vs PS2 one) are very informative. Good job guys!

  • 2035? (Score:3, Informative)

    by LesPaul75 ( 571752 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @07:55PM (#5348357) Journal
    The most interesting thing about Moore's Law, to me, is that it implies that technology advances at an exponential rate. If that's true, then there are some obvious, serious consequences ahead.

    IBM announced recently that they will be producing a computer with roughly the same computing power as the human brain, possibly by 2005. That's a pretty significant milestone, if you think about it. Following through with Moore's Law, we should have a computer that is 1000 times more powerful than the human brain as soon as 2020... and a computer that is a million times more powerful than the human brain by 2035.

    A million times more powerful than the human brain! What will we do with a computer that powerful? Or, maybe a better question is: What will a computer that powerful do with us?

    Kurzweil [kurzweilai.net] has a lot of great articles on this sort of thing.

  • Here is an interesting link that ties into this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) on Thursday February 20, 2003 @09:13PM (#5348830) Journal
    There were a link on pages linked off of that story. Found it at http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickrefyr.htm [intel.com] and also links to History of the Microprocessor. [intel.com]

    These show the history, compare die sizes, etc. and add some context to this article. Had to dig a bit, but I love this kinda stuff. Bet Im not the only one.

  • Ex post facto laws (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mr. methane ( 593577 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @12:15AM (#5349828) Journal
    Mean that buying any PC immediately causes Best Buy to sell it for $100 less than you paid.

    The first computer I owned was a Compaq Portable (about as portable as a 20" color TV with a handle on it). I paid $3,000 for it - with a 10mb hard drive and a 1200bps Hayes modem.

    Today, that same $3,000 - not even adjusting for inflation, and buying only retail equipment, would get me a 2.5+ghz machine with a 20" LCD flat panel. And if I noodge the sales droid enough, toss in a disposable HP printer (as if they make another kind...)

    The only concern I have about personal computers these days is... how the heck do I keep track of the exploding volume of information on them?

    How do I keep 2,500 family pictures? And find the one of a friend's birthday party?

    How do I organize 10 years of letters and emails? And not lose track of the ones from my dad?

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