50+ Years of Moore’s Law — Here’s what comes next.
It’s one of the universal truths in life — turning 50 is a milestone that brings with it both reflection on the past and a look to the future. A time to recognise how far you’ve come and what the future has in store. It’s no less true whether it’s a person, an organisation, a Country (like Singapore), or even a principle of technology such as Moore’s Law.
If you’re not familiar with Moore’s Law, it was given its name from Gordon E Moore’s article Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits published in the April 1965 issue of Electronics Magazine. In it, Moore suggested that computing would dramatically increase in power and decrease in relative cost at an exponential pace.
Moore started his article with a bold prediction of our digital future.
“Integrated circuits will lead to such wonders as home computers- or at least terminals connected to a central computer- automatic controls for automobiles, and personal portable communications equipment.”
A radical prediction for 1965! He went on to assert that the number of transistors that could be assembled onto a microchip had been doubling every year and “There is no reason to believe that it will not remain nearly constant for the next 10 years.”
The article even included a cheerful illustration showing home computers would soon be productized and as a common place as cosmetics.
While technically not a law of physics, like say gravity, the economics and engineering proved to be accurate and Moore’s law has been the guiding light that has defined the Tech Industry for more than half a century. Manufacturers could build products safe in the knowledge that the price of computing would come down and the power would increase, in a predictable way.
This principle was expanded upon by Ray Kurzweil in his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines where he proposed “The Law of Accelerating Returns”.According to this law, the rate of change in a wide variety of evolutionary systems (including but not limited to the growth of technologies) tends to increase exponentially. He proposed Moore’s law will end “by the year 2020” but states the law of accelerating returns ensures progress will continue to accelerate and other advanced technology will be developed to carry on the exponential growth curve.
My favourite visualisation of this principal is from a Steve Jurvetson article on Flickr.
It shows us in terms we can understand just what this process has meant over the past 120 years. The question of how much computational power $1,000 dollars can buy goes way beyond chips and has been on incredibly predictable curve regardless of the technology at the time. It has been impervious to the great depression and two world wars.
“Humanity’s capacity to compute has compounded for as long as we can measure it, starting long before Intel co-founder Gordon Moore noticed a refraction of the longer-term trend in the belly of the then fledgeling semiconductor industry.” (Steve Jurvetson)
Perhaps more transformational than what $1,000 buys you in computational terms is what $100 (or even $10) buys you in product terms. Without Moore’s law, Smartphone’s would not be here today. But remember, a smartphone is more than just a number crunching chip, its form factor, screen, sensors, battery etc all combine to deliver something truly game changing, particularly in emerging economies where all the growth is set to come from.
The bottom line is more people than ever have access to the internet (approx 3.5b), and Smartphones are the main driver of this growth in emerging economies. This technological and cultural revolution would not be possible without Moore’s Law but what comes next?
The Future of Moore’s Law
The origins of Moore’s Law dealt directly with the evolution of the transistor chip but now that this technology is close to being phased out, what does this mean for technology trends in the future? An article in The Economist addressed this very question.
“One way or another, it seems the 50-year era of driving semiconductor costs down through improvements in process technology is about to be superseded by a new age of making chips cheaper, faster and better through smarter design. In so doing, Moore’s law could be set for a whole new lease of life.”
Which perhaps explains why the Semiconductor Industry continues to pour such significant resources into R&D. (source www.mckinsey.com)
Exponential Growth in the Age of The Internet of Things
Even if the letter of Moore’s law comes to an end, the spirit of it lives on. Because the one certainty is that the rate of technological change is only set to accelerate providing future innovative entrepreneurs “exponential opportunities” to solve these big problems in creative ways and take us further up the curve of progress.
There are already far more connected devices than there are people on the planet and this will continue to dwarf Smartphone growth. (Image source NCTA).
As we move into an era where one generation’s technological advancements stand on the shoulders of the previous generation’s, the driving force behind Moore’s law lives on.
In the future, we will be able to do more with less- “Moore or less”.
