Moore's Law -- the ability to pack twice as many transistors on the same sliver of silicon every two years -- will come to an end as soon as 2020 at the 7nm node says Robert Colwell who now works for DARPA (trying to pick after CMOS technology) and was Intel's chief chip architect from 1990 to 2001.
"For planning horizons, I pick 2020 as the earliest date we could call it dead," said Robert Colwell, who seeks follow-on technologies as director of the microsystems group at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. "You could talk me into 2022, but whether it will come at 7 or 5nm, it's a big deal."
Moore's Law was a rare exponential growth factor that over 30 years brought speed boosts from 1 MHz to 5 GHz, a 3,500-fold increase. By contrast, the best advances in clever architectures delivered about 50x increases over the same period, he said. Exponentials always come to an end by the very nature of their unsustainably heady growth. Unfortunately, such rides are rare, Colwell said.
"I don't expect to see another 3,500x increase in electronics -- maybe 50x in the next 30 years," he said.
"I don't think there's ever been a technology development like this one," he said. "Ray Kurzweil ... goes down a different path. He says, 'No, no, no, no; Moore's Law is just one of a set of exponentials over history. It's just the latest one. Don't worry about it.' I say baloney. I don't agree with him at all."
Colwell postulated a future chip designer who accepted the fact that Moore's Law had run its course, but who used a variety of clever architectural innovations to push the envelope. If that designer's chip could provide a 50 per cent improvement in performance or power consumption, Colwell says, it would likely find a market. "But how about 20 per cent? How about 10 per cent? How far down are you willing to go and still think that you've got something you can sell?"
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"For planning horizons, I pick 2020 as the earliest date we could call it dead," said Robert Colwell, who seeks follow-on technologies as director of the microsystems group at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. "You could talk me into 2022, but whether it will come at 7 or 5nm, it's a big deal."
Moore's Law was a rare exponential growth factor that over 30 years brought speed boosts from 1 MHz to 5 GHz, a 3,500-fold increase. By contrast, the best advances in clever architectures delivered about 50x increases over the same period, he said. Exponentials always come to an end by the very nature of their unsustainably heady growth. Unfortunately, such rides are rare, Colwell said.
"I don't expect to see another 3,500x increase in electronics -- maybe 50x in the next 30 years," he said.
"I don't think there's ever been a technology development like this one," he said. "Ray Kurzweil ... goes down a different path. He says, 'No, no, no, no; Moore's Law is just one of a set of exponentials over history. It's just the latest one. Don't worry about it.' I say baloney. I don't agree with him at all."
Colwell postulated a future chip designer who accepted the fact that Moore's Law had run its course, but who used a variety of clever architectural innovations to push the envelope. If that designer's chip could provide a 50 per cent improvement in performance or power consumption, Colwell says, it would likely find a market. "But how about 20 per cent? How about 10 per cent? How far down are you willing to go and still think that you've got something you can sell?"
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