CSC/ECE 506 Spring 2012/1b as

What is Moore's Law?

Moore's law, named after Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, states that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit will double approximately every two years<ref>http://www.computerhistory.org/semiconductor/timeline/1965-Moore.html</ref>. The original prediction in 1965 stated a doubling every 12 months, but in 1975, after microprocessors were introduced that were less dense he slowed the rate of doubling to it's current state of two years <ref>http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2008/09/moore.ars</ref>. Instead of giving an empirical formula predicting the rate of increase, Moore instead used prose, graphs, and images to convey these predictions and observations to the masses. This in some ways increased the staying power of Moore's law, allowing the industry to use it as a benchmark of success and a measurable determination of their success. Virtually all digital devices are in some way fundamentally linked to the growth set in place by Moore's law.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law</ref>

The lesser known second law

Also know as Rock's law, this law is a direct consequence to Moore's law in that the cost to produce transistors on a chip may go down, these costs instead flow towards manufacturing, testing, and research and development. The law states that the cost of a semiconductor chip fabrication plant doubles ever four years. Simply put, in order for Moore's law to hold, Rock's law must also hold.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock%27s_law</ref>

Moore's law, past to present

Reviewing data from the inception of Moore's law to the present shows that, consistent to Moore's prediction, the number of transistors on a chip has doubled approximately every 2 years. There are several contributing factors, that had they not been developed, could have slowed or plateaued Moore's law. Some of these are, the invention Dynamic random access memory (DRAM), complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS), and the invention of the integrated circuit itself. Moore's law isn't only responsible for making larger and faster chips, but also smaller, cheaper, and more efficient ones as well.

Processor	Transistor count	Date of introduction	Manufacturer	Process	Area
Intel 4004	2,300	1971	Intel	10 µm	12 mm²
Intel 8008	3,500	1972	Intel	10 µm	14 mm²
MOS Technology 6502	3,510	1975	MOS Technology		21 mm²
Motorola 6800	4,100	1974	Motorola		16 mm²
Intel 8080	4,500	1974	Intel	6 μm	20 mm²
RCA 1802	5,000	1974	RCA	5 μm	27 mm²
Intel 8085	6,500	1976	Intel	3 μm	20 mm²
Zilog Z80	8,500	1976	Zilog	4 μm	18 mm²
Motorola 6809	9,000	1978	Motorola	5 μm	21 mm²
Intel 8086	29,000	1978	Intel	3 μm	33 mm²
Intel 8088	29,000	1979	Intel	3 μm	33 mm²
Intel 80186	55,000	1982	Intel
Motorola 68000	68,000	1979	Motorola	4 μm	44 mm²
Intel 80286	134,000	1982	Intel	1.5 µm	49 mm²
Intel 80386	275,000	1985	Intel	1.5 µm	104 mm²
Intel 80486	1,180,000	1989	Intel	1 µm	160 mm²
Pentium	3,100,000	1993	Intel	0.8 µm	294 mm²
AMD K5	4,300,000	1996	AMD	0.5 µm
Pentium II	7,500,000	1997	Intel	0.35 µm	195 mm²
AMD K6	8,800,000	1997	AMD	0.35 µm
Pentium III	9,500,000	1999	Intel	0.25 µm
AMD K6-III	21,300,000	1999	AMD	0.25 µm
AMD K7	22,000,000	1999	AMD	0.25 µm
Pentium 4	42,000,000	2000	Intel	180 nm
Atom	47,000,000	2008	Intel	45 nm
Barton	54,300,000	2003	AMD	130 nm
AMD K8	105,900,000	2003	AMD	130 nm
Itanium 2	220,000,000	2003	Intel	130 nm
Cell	241,000,000	2006	Sony/IBM/Toshiba	90 nm
Core 2 Duo	291,000,000	2006	Intel	65 nm
AMD K10	463,000,000	2007	AMD	65 nm
AMD K10	758,000,000	2008	AMD	45 nm
Itanium 2 with 9MB cache	592,000,000	2004	Intel	130 nm
Core i7 (Quad)	731,000,000	2008	Intel	45 nm	263 mm²
Six-Core Xeon 7400	1,900,000,000	2008	Intel	45 nm
POWER6	789,000,000	2007	IBM	65 nm	341 mm²
Six-Core Opteron 2400	904,000,000	2009	AMD	45 nm	346 mm²
16-Core SPARC T3	1,000,000,000	2010	Sun/Oracle Corporation|Oracle	40 nm	377 mm²
Core i7 (Gulftown)	1,170,000,000	2010	Intel	32 nm	240 mm²
8-core POWER7	1,200,000,000	2010	IBM	45 nm	567 mm²
z196	1,400,000,000	2010	IBM	45 nm	512 mm²
Dual-Core Itanium 2	1,700,000,000	2006	Intel	90 nm	596 mm²
Tukwila	2,000,000,000	2010	Intel	65 nm	699 mm²
Core i7 (Sandy Bridge-E)	2,270,000,000	2011	Intel	32 nm	434 mm²
Nehalem-EX	2,300,000,000	2010	Intel	45 nm	684 mm²
10-Core Xeon Westmere-EX	2,600,000,000	2011	Intel	32 nm	512 mm²

A quick primer on current manufacturing techniques

At the heart of Moore's Law is the transistor. Computer chips contain hundreds of millions of transistors on a silicon wafer. To make these chips, first a “stencil” is made containing the outlines of millions of transistors. This is placed over a silicone wafer containing many layers of silicon, which is sensitive to light. Ultraviolet light is then focused on the stencil, which then penetrates through the gaps of the stencil and exposes the silicon wafer.Then the wafer is bathed in acid, carving the outlines of the circuits and creating the intricate design of millions of transistors. Since the wafer consists of many conducting and semiconducting layers, the acid cuts into the wafer at different depths and patterns, so one can create circuits of enormous complexity.

One reason why Moore’s law has relentlessly increased the power of chips is because UV light can be tuned so that its wavelength is smaller and smaller, making it possible to etch increasingly tiny transistors onto silicon wafers. Since UV light has a wavelength as small as 10 nanometers (a nanometer is a billionth of a meter), this means that the smallest transistor that you can etch is about thirty atoms across. But this process cannot go on forever. At some point, it will be physically impossible to etch transistors in this way that are the size of atoms. Moore’s law will finally collapse when transistor sizes are reduced to the size of individual atoms.

Currently, estimates predict that around 2020 or soon afterward, Moore’s law will gradually cease to hold true. Transistors will be so small that quantum theory or atomic physics takes over and electrons will leak out of the wires. For example, the thinnest layer inside a computer will be about five atoms across. At that size, quantum effects will become dominant and transistors will not function as they currently do without other technological advances.

Beyond Moore's Law

There are a few new technologies that have the potential to change the underlying architecture of processors and extend performance gains past the theoretical limits of traditional transistors.

The Memristor

Currently being developed by Hewlett Packard, the memristor is a new type of transistor that combines both electrical charge and magnetic flux. As current flows in one direction through the circuit, resistance increases. Reversing the flow will decrease the resistance and stopping the flow will leave the resistance in the current state. This type of structure allows for both data storage and data processing (logic gate construction). Currently, it is postulated that memristors could be layered in three dimensions on silicone, yielding data and transistor densities of up to 1000 times greater than currently available. HP has reported the ability to fit 100GB in a square centimeter<ref name="EETimes">Template:Citation</ref> and with the ability to layer memristors, this could lead to pocket devices with a capacity of over 1 petabyte.

Some advanced theoretical capabilities of memristors are the ability to store more than one state, which can lead to analog computing. Memristor technology may also provide an excellent architecture for synaptic modeling and self-learning systems.

References

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