Wednesday 9 March 2011

A reminder in Moore's Law

Mobile phones, laptops, netbooks and tablets: You see a new one in each category appear almost every month. Do you remember, on the other hand, back in 2006 when the first iPhone was released? Despite the trend in mobile phones slowly transitioning into the dominant touch screen-enabled smart phone we see today, the rate at which new electronics appeared on the market was far slower than it is today. Here's at least one reason for the increase in pace.


If there's one component present in every single electronic device that can be considered its beating heart, it's the semiconductor, or microchip.
We've reached a point where one could say it's ridiculous, with microchips inhabiting traditionally "dumb" objects from grave-stones and running shoes to fish lures and writing pens. Why are we doing this, you ask? Because it's become economically feasible to do so now. Semiconductors become smaller, faster and even cheaper to produce all the time.

Microchip-powered tombstones allow Timmy to read Grandma's tweets
Moore's Law, named after Intel co-founded Gordon Moore, states that the amount of transistors that can be placed on a microchip doubles approximately every two years. When the Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969, the computer regulating its processes had a 2MHz processor. That's about as much as a graphical calculator has today. We've been making quantum leaps in computer processing even before most of you were born, and despite Moore's prediction that this crazy bi-annual increase in computing power would continue for just 10 years, the Law has in fact held to this very day and shows no signs of slowing down until at least 2015.

Trivia: The first semiconductor was created by a man named Jack S. Kilby in 1958, while working for the same company that produced many of your scientific calculators: Texas Instruments

28 comments:

Jay said...

it's still amazing how Moore's law has proven itself up to this day. Bravo to the scientists and engineers who have endevored to make this happen.

Merlyy said...

Nice blog entry

THanks :)

i_love_weed said...

i cant wait till its 2040.

well be running 60ghz 128core processors on 1TB of RAM and everyone will have grown up with computers.

which means no imcompetent old people on the interwebs :3

elexerdelex said...

Can't wait to see 2015! Where my toilet asks me if I want to flush, or my bed is nagging me to get up!

CandleintheDark said...

Yeah, it is getting better with time. We are exponentially growing in technological capacity. It is an interesting time to live

Jesse Brooks said...

Interesting read, it seems as though everything is being invaded by technology these days. I don't know about the rest of you, but give me an old-fashioned book any day.

Anonymous said...

I never really thought about that before, it's so easy to just get used to how new things take over quickly. Interesting post.

Electric Addict said...

good bit of history here and Moore's law seems to still happening. It is crazy and somewhat scary to watch. Artificial Intelligence in the future is a scary concept. Will humans be out evolved?

Chris said...

Now I know Moore's Law

Fix PC Games Admin said...

very nice article

Pauli said...

I like it!

Voit said...

Thanks for specifying the Moore law, I've always read about it as referring generally to 'computer processing speed'.

Also I remember the time when I measured 'computer speed' by the amount of CPU's MHzs. Back then the growth was clearly visible for me, but since the multicores I don't follow it anymore, so I don't really know if the Moore law is still valid.

Gryt said...

That's insane. And I think that the rate technology advances is directly proportional to the amount of old people who don't know how to use a cell phone or computer haha. I feel like even I'm getting left in the dust now

Adventure Person said...

That's crazy, but it's still ringing true. Amazing how technology progresses...

FranklinR said...

Cool blog, I'm gonna go ahead and give it a thumbs up in stumbleupon.

ed said...

its crazy how fast technology advances

Ada said...

I love it; science is amazing and I wish the US government would spend more on it!

Unknown said...

I remember that quote from class

William Edmondson said...

Ughhhh I can't wait for the future. I wish it would hurry up and GET HERE ALREADY!

Paul Johannsen said...

I keep wondering what technology will be like by the time I hit 60 :P

Random Fan said...

Moore's Law will end within a decade unless we develop quantum computing. Of course...we're almost certainly going to do that. Go us!

Alphabeta said...

It's amazing to think the moon landing was co-ordinated on 2Mhz machine.

Kyle Shankin said...

Very interesting, imagine what we can do in space now a days! I can't image for that specific day where a wealth of information just pours in.

Me said...

If only internet bandwidth followed moore's law.

Jason said...

i'm pretty happy with my flip phone. don't have to worry about breaking it when i drop it.

noog said...

I've mastered Murphy's Law... and I am not a fan of that one.... Moore's Law sounds more up my alley! Great post/blog, followin!

MikeJoeMuse said...

Seems like thought provoking stuff here :S

Zakk said...

love your blog, you have my support and I'll be following.

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