Moore's Law attacked from the air

SIMPLE ECONOMICS COULD SPELL the end for Moore's law. The much discussed theory states that the number of transistors you can put on a chip doubles every 18-24 months and that the power of processors doubles in the same timeframe. Common sense as much as anything else could put an end to it.

According to a report on EETimes, co-chief executive of Israeli foundry Tower Semiconductor Yoav Nissan-Cohen, an ex combat pilot, has spelt out some fundamental problems with Moore's law. Not least is that the semiconductor industry is simply too young for such a law to last.

Drawing parallels with the aircraft industry, he pointed out that early aviation saw remarkable growth. He argued that it is not unusual for an observation like Moore's to lose its value over time. Taking commercial airliners as an example, he pointed out that extrapolating from the first 60 years of would lead some to suggest that aircraft might be carrying 13,000 passengers by now.

But commercial aircraft effectively stopped getting bigger with the 747. Simple economics made it unfeasible for larger aircraft. Nissan-Cohen argued that the same is likely to happen to semiconductors. You can only put so many transistors on a chip before it becomes uneconomical to put any more on there.

Whether the lessons from other industries will hold true is open for question. Technology has a way changing people's expectations like nothing else. Twenty years ago, who would have believed that mobile phones would become nearly indispensible?

Will Moore's Law hold out? We suspect it has a good few years to run yet. µ