08/03/98- Updated 08:16 PM ET
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Breakthroughs affirm computer guru's growth theory
Moore's Law is kaput? Nuked? Whacked?
Gordon Moore laughs. Moore is the legendary co-founder of Intel
and the man for whom Moore's Law is named. The warm laugh is the
kind amused adults use when a little tyke says something outrageous.
I've asked him if innovations unveiled in the past week blow past
his theory governing all of computerdom.
"These things are not blowing by Moore's Law," he says.
"They're helping to keep up with it."
Moore's Law is the metronome for the pace of change in technology.
It states, in its most quoted form, that the number of components
that can be packed on a computer chip doubles every 18 months
while the price stays the same. Essentially, that means that computer
power per dollar doubles every 18 months. The law, amazingly,
has held true for more than 30 years. Companies from Bell Atlantic
to BackWeb Technologies build their plans around it.
To technology people, saying Moore's Law is obsolete is like telling
airplane makers the law of gravity has changed. Yet, in the past
week, pundits and news stories have proclaimed that recent developments
mean technology will race ahead faster than Moore's Law predicts.
The first development came from Intel. It introduced an advance
that would let it pack twice as much data in a memory chip. A
few days later, IBM said it had developed a way to use microscopic
copper wiring instead of aluminum in computer chips, which would
help IBM make faster, cheaper microprocessors.
But neither alters Moore's Law. They only remove barriers that
would have hindered technology from keeping up with the law. And
that's what always happens. The past 30 years, there have been
lots of barriers to Moore's Law. But someone always comes up with
a way to move past them. And the law marches on.
It's been so on-target for so long, no one is quite sure whether
its pace is inevitable, or whether Moore's Law has become Moore's
Goal, and everybody works to try to keep the pace going. Moore
leans toward the latter. "Companies realize they have to
keep up with Moore's Law or fall behind," he says. "So
it's really become kind of a driving force."
Others see it differently. "I used to think (Moore's Law)
was a historical curiosity. As I continued to work on it, I thought
it was a self-fulfilling prophecy," says Randy Isaac, head
of basic science at IBM. "Now I view it more as a self-consistent
economic cycle."
A self-what? Isaac explains that, basically, there are a lot of
factors - expectations, money and many different pieces of technology
- that feed and play off one another to perpetuate Moore's Law.
"It just hangs together," he says.
And, somehow, breakthroughs come when they're needed. IBM's was
one. Chips long have used aluminum wires because copper doesn't
work well with silicon. But aluminum doesn't conduct electricity
as well as copper. In a few years, the wires in chips will be
so tiny, not enough electricity could move through aluminum wires.
That would brake the pace of change.
IBM found a way to make copper wires work with silicon so enough
electricity can get through the ever-shrinking wires. "It
removes that barrier and allows us to continue with Moore's Law,"
Isaac says.
Still, Moore's Law probably won't hold true forever. There are
serious barriers ahead. Optical lithography, used in making chips,
will reach its limits in about 10 years. Insulators on chips are
only four or five atoms thick. They can't get much smaller.
"By 2010 or 2020, we'll see a slowing in our ability to make
things smaller," Moore says.
He then might have to retool Moore's Law, which, not many people
know, he's done before. "In 1965, I said the number of components
would double every year. In 1975, I updated it."
To say the number would double every 18 months, like everyone
says?
"No. Every two years, which has held true. I never said 18
months."
Whoops.
By Kevin Maney, USA TODAY
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