Moores Law Dynamics of a Technological Revolution Thomas J. Misa Charles Babbage Institute
Plan for today Views of Moores Law (1965--) What sort of law? Turning points Making a Law Nothing about the future CBIwhat are we, who supports, what do we do?
Views of Moores Law (1)
Views of Moores Law (2) Electronics 19 April 1965
Views of Moores Law (3) The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year... Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue…. Over the longer term … there is no reason to believe it will not remain nearly constant for at least 10 years. Gordon Moore Electronics (19 April 1965)
Views of Moores Law (4) Gordon Moore Electronics 19 April 1965
Views of Moores Law (5) TI integrated circuit (early 1960s) Pentium-4 300mm wafer (2000)
What kind of law? Gordon Moore (1965) Carver Mead (c.1970) Regis McKenna (?) The press called this Moores Law and the name has stuck. GM
What kind of law? Gordon Moore (1975): Larger die-size ~ 1/3 contribution Die-size x smaller dimensions ~1/3 Device and circuit cleverness ~1/3
What kind of law? Bipolar to MOS (except ) XCCD memories DRAM (early) Microprocessors (later)... hard drives (Kryders law)... software (Wirths law)
1965 | 1977 | 1987 | 1992 | 1998 Insight Investments Expectations Public policy Popular understanding
1965 | 1977 | 1987 | 1992 | 1998 G. Moore Progress in Digital Integrated Electronics Technical Digest IEEE Intl Electron Devices (1975) R.Noyce Large Scale Integration: What is Yet to Come? Science (1977) R.Noyce Microelectronics Scientific American (1977) Carver Meads evangelism (Moores data)
1965 | 1977 | 1987 | 1992 | 1998 DSB Task Force on Semiconductor Dependency (1986) SEMATECH f (14 firms + $100M DoD) Coop R&D across industry IBM leads roadmapping inside SEMATECH
1965 | 1977 | 1987 | 1992 | 1998 SIA starts National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (NTRS) NTRS as most detailed reincarnation [of] Moores Law (W.Maly CMU)
1965 | 1977 | 1987 | 1992 | 1998 NTRS -> ITRS (SIAs of US, Japan, Europe, S.Korea; later Taiwan) Moores Law as self-fulfilling prediction that drives industry-wide planning (NSF 2000) 1980s nationalism -> globalism
insight | invest | expect | public | popular Insight Role of science (GM, CM as PhDs) Knowledge of technical field (success after the fact)
insight | invest | expect | public | popular Investments (1) Sequoia Capitals Don Valentine: I just follow Moores Law and make a few guesses about its consequences. (2005)
insight | invest | expect | public | popular Investments (2) Intels Craig Barrett (2002): we dont adhere to Moores Law for the hell of it. Its a fundamental expectation that everybody at Intel buys into. We dangle Moores Law in front of the new young minds … and say, Hey, your predecessors were smart enough to figure this out for the past 20 or 30 yearswhy the hell arent you?
insight | invest | expect | public | popular Expectations If we can stay on the SIA Roadmap, we can essentially stay on the [Moores Law] curve. It really becomes a question of putting the track ahead of the train to stay on plan. (G.Moore 1997)
insight | invest | expect | public | popular Public policy U.S. trade policy SEMATECH R&D consortium Collective action (SIA ---> ITRS)
insight | invest | expect | public | popular Popular understanding (feedback)
What is CBI?
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Who supports us? University Library IT Dean History of Science, Technology & Medicine (Ph.D. program) ERA endowment CBI Friends (annual)
What do we do? Research Archiving Publication Infrastructure
Archiving = boxes in attic to research tool Records from companies, individuals, professional organizations, government Rare publications Photos, films, videotapes Archiving | Research | Publishing | Infrastructure
DARPA history ( ) Software History (NSF ) Documenting Internet2 (NA ) IBM Rochester study (2005-6) Computer services industry E-government (NSFs FastLane) Moores Law Archiving | Research | Publishing | Infrastructure
Social Infrastructure –20+ CBI-Tomash fellows –Local/inter/national networks… –Researchers, practitioners, financial supporters Physical infrastructure Archiving | Research | Publishing | Infrastructure
Blasting for caverns July 1997 Tunnel entrance December 1997
Archiving | Research | Publishing | Infrastructure Underground caverns Andersen Library June 1999
Archiving | Research | Publishing | Infrastructure Andersen Library Grand Opening April 2000
The End