Happy 50th Anniversary of Moore's Law

The Washington Post's Robert J. Samuelson writes a very nice article titled, "

The power of Moore’s Law

The article opens with:

"Fifty years ago, in mid-April 1965, the trade magazine Electronics published an article by an obscure scientist making a seemingly preposterous prediction: The number of electronic components (transistors, resistors, capacitors) that could be squeezed onto integrated circuits — what we now call computer chips — would double every year for a decade. The author was Gordon Moore, and his forecast, subsequently slightly modified, is now known as Moore’s Law. We have been living with the consequences ever since."

Having spent 37 years in the computer industry, I can tell you that Moore's Law is the first law of computing.

Mr. Samuelson makes the following great points:


"The resulting explosion in computing power is almost unfathomable. A single chip today can contain 10 billion transistors. In 2014, global chip production was equal to 8 trillion transistors being produced every second, according to Dan Hutcheson of VLSI Research. Prices have collapsed. A single transistor is now worth a billionth of a penny. Even Moore has been surprised at the durability of Moore’s Law. Engineers and scientists have repeatedly defied formidable technical obstacles to expand chip capacity."