The future of Moore's law
Yesterday we visited with Intel and discussed security, privacy and future technology. Intel is an interesting company, being as they are an absolute pre-requisite for the information society. But for how long can this continue? Can we continue to see increasing price/performance in the future? Will Moore's law hold over time?Gene Meieran, the second Intel fellow ever and a (again!) the stuff of legend (considering the time he has spent at the company, 33 years, and the total time he has spent in the industry, 43 years, he is one of the institutional memories still around and he is still very active) thinks that it will certainly continue to hold for the coming 10-15 years, and he sees no reason to suspect that it will cease to hold after that either. In a sense we've never had som many different new computational technology bases to migrate to, and this in itself is promising. Consider the alternatives being developed right now: chemnical transistors, photonics, DNA-based computing, quantum dots...The number of alternatives is growing quickly and there seems to be no danger that we will be forced to give up on Moore's law.
Meieran also had the kindness to show us around the Museum at Intel, showing us how wafer production has developed and how new fabs are being constructed. The display there is fabulous, and also celebrates one of the founders of Intel, Robert Noyce. One qoute from Noyce is replicated at several different places in the building (and the building also bears his name). The quote is: ”Don't be encumbered by history. Go off and do something wonderful”. A great thought.