In 1965, Gordon Moore, the founder of Intel, predicted that the number of components that could fit on a microchip would double every year for the next decade.
Tom Hoggins for The Telegraph:
Moore revised his prediction in 1975 to a doubling of components every two years – a prophecy that remained true for another four decades.
The doubling of transistors – semi-conductor devices that switch electronic signals and power – meant that technology would become exponentially more powerful, smaller and cheaper. The fact that the smartphone in your pocket is now many thousands times more powerful than mainframe computers the size of buildings in the 1970s is a testament to this fact.
But over the past few years, Moore’s Law has begun to reach its natural end as we squeeze every nanometer of advancement out of silicon chips. By the mid-2020s it is believed that the Law will have plateaued completely as production costs increase and transistors reach their physical limits.
With Moore’s Law effectively becoming economically unsound, the technology industry will need to become more creative without an established blueprint to follow. As a result, a new era in computing could follow.
MacDailyNews Take: Sounds not like an end, but an opportunity to us. After all, necessity is the mother of invention.