Russell McMahon <piclist@mit.edu> wrote:

> Moore's law informally predicts that "microprocessor" processing
> power will double every 18 months. (Originally it was 12 months and
> related to transistors in an IC but it was extended long ago to the
> currently accepted meaning.)

    In his 1965 paper, Moore pointed out that to keep the
    manufacturing cost per transistor at a minimum, the number of
    transistors required per chip had had to double every year...
    And he predicted that the trend would continue. 

    As far as I know, that "law" is still (more-or-less) holding true.

    The "informal", "extended" version -- "the clock speed of the
    fastest Intel and AMD x86 processors that are sold to the general
    public for use in Windows PCs will double every 18 months" --
    seems only weakly related to what Moore was talking about.  To
    me, the surprising thing isn't that clock speeds are failing to
    keep up with Moore's exponential-growth model of minimum-cost
    transistors, but that they closely tracked his model in the first
    place. 

    -Andy

=== Andrew Warren -- aiw@cypress.com
=== Principal Design Engineer
=== Cypress Semiconductor Corporation
=== 
=== Opinions expressed above do not
=== necessarily represent those of
=== Cypress Semiconductor Corporation

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