Hello Steemians, hope All is Well. Today, I am gonna write about Moore's law. This law is guiding the course and development of modern electronics and semiconductor industry.
Electronic devices including magical box before you, are all about the combination of 0's and 1's. Physically, it means the combination of electronic switches. The switch on condition is 1 and switch off condition is 0. Transistors are used as switches in modern computing. One transistor can either switch on or switch off. 8 transistors can form 256 combinations of on's and off's which is called 1 byte. Some combinations can be
00000000
11111111
10101010
01010101
... to 256 combinations.
And,
1024 bytes = 1 kilobyte(KB)
1024 kilobyte = 1 Megabyte(MB)
1024 Megabyte = 1 Gigabyte(GB)
1024 Gigabyte = 1 Terrabyte(TB)
Now, you have heard of these things. These are the size of the file on your computer. Yeah, its the reason for you watching this article, videos on youtube, face booking(don't tell others I used this here).
But but but, your computers have Terra bytes of data. Yeah, That means lots of transistors. Transistors are very small, they can be integrated to form integrated circuit called microchips or microprocessors.
It follows logically that, the speed and smartness of computer depend on how closely these transistors can be packed in the microchip. Now, you are ready to go to law. Being an engineering student and physics enthusiast, I cannot digest saying this one law. I say its just an observation or prediction. Now, for formality and its fame, let's call it a law.
In 1965, Gordon Moore, Co-founder of Intel observed that the number of transistors per unit area in the integrated circuit(IC) is doubling since its invention. He predicted that the trend will continue at least for next decade.He revised his forecast later as
The number of transistor counts in integrated circuit doubles every two years.
Due to increment in number and transistor being fast itself, performance doubles nearly at 18 months. It was predicted by Intel executive David House.
The prediction of growth is exponential so, it is evident that law won't be true for indefinitely. This law was pretty accurate up to 2006. After that, we have fallen behind.
Transistor are made up of Silicon(Si). According to theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, When transistors are closely packed further(layers are 20 atoms across now and when it is decreased to 5 atoms), there will be two main problems
i. Heat: The heat generated will be intense enough to melt the silicon.
ii. Leakage: In that small distance, quantum theory is prominent. From Heisenberg uncertainty principle, we cant locate the electrons accurately which results in leakage.
Conclusion
Moore's law predicted pretty well but for further advancement, we should develop new technology. Molecular transistors, quantum computing can be future candidates. These technologies have own problems. Let's hope problems will be solved and we will get very fast and smart magical box before us.
Text Sources:
Investopedia.com
mooreslaw.com
Post Silicon Era
Image
Ternary processors will be published this year by IOTA + JINN. They use trits (-1,0,1 or 0,1,2) and trytes instead of bits and bytes. They are way faster and consume less energy. They are also the first step to quantum computing. This is the new area and solves a bunch of problems. Be ready for the future!
Beside there is also a "new" direction called More then Moore. The aim is to bring more functions to chips, like sensors for various types of gas, or nano antennas. Quite interesting field.