The Moore’s Law was founded in 1965 by Intel Corporation’s co-founder, Gordon Moore. At the time, he believed that the number of transistors within an integrated semiconductor chip would double every year. However, after witnessing a slowdown in semiconductor innovation in 1975, he revisited that original doubling time frame and revised it to roughly every two years (Gregersen Moore’s law). Moore’s Law received praise among the tech industry as the golden pillar and was credited as the force that drove our modern-day semiconductor advancements. In the past couple of decades, this golden pillar has, for the most part, stood the test of time. However, this pillar started to show cracks in recent years, and its doubling time has become tougher to meet.

To better understand the demise of Moore’s Law, we would have to mention Dennard Scaling, also known as MOSFET, metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor scaling. Dennard Scaling was an idea introduced by IBM researcher Robert H. Dennard. He argued that as the transistors shrink within an integrated circuit, the power density will remain the same. To put it in layman’s terms, it means that even though the transistors have become smaller, their ability to preserve power density in comparison to the previous generations of chips will remain the same. Therefore, it gives the semiconductor manufacturers an edge to boost their chip’s overall performance by increasing its relative clock speed (Platt Metamorphosis of an industry, part two: Moore’s law and Dennard scaling).

Unfortunately, however, the Dennard Scaling did not stand the test of time, and it was debunked by its exclusion of possible “leakage current” and “threshold voltage.” Furthermore, when transistors become smaller, it creates something called a “power wall” that has limited the maximum frequency of the chips to about four gigahertz (Gropp Moore’s Law and Dennard Scaling). Therefore, even though Moore’s Law has held relatively true over the past fifty years, its continuing existence will highly depend on future improvements in the architectural design of the chip. And by refining the architectural design of the chips, the instructions sets can be carried out more efficiently, thereby reducing the need for frequency and transistor count improvements in future chips.

Works Cited

“Moore’s Law.” Edited by Erik Gregersen, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 26 Dec. 2019, http://www.britannica.com/technology/Moores-law.

Platt, Susan. “Metamorphosis of an Industry, Part Two: Moore’s Law and Dennard Scaling.” Micron, 3 Oct. 2018, http://www.micron.com/about/blog/2018/october/metamorphosis-of-an-industry-part-two-moores-law.

Gropp, William. Moore’s Law and Dennard Scaling. Moore’s Law and Dennard Scaling, Illinois, University of Illinois.