Is Moore's Law Dead? Does It Matter?

Brian Bailey, Engineering Consultant & EETimes DesignLine contributing editor
EETimes (7/31/2013 08:00 AM EDT)

Most of the time when I hear an end-of-the-world story, I just roll my eyes and move on. However, I heard a message at DAC this year that still has me thinking.

People have been talking about the end of Moore's Law for some time, but those discussions became a lot more urgent and heated at DAC in June. Many reasons have been postulated as to why Moore's Law might end, including not being able to overcome some physical limitation -- perhaps a design issue that is preventing the whole chip from being powered up at the same time. More recently the matter of cost has been raised, where it will become so expensive to design a chip at the next node that nobody will be able to afford it. The concern has been that, with fewer design starts using the latest technologies and lower chip volumes, manufacturers would then not invest in wafer fabs for the next technology.

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