TOBY SHAPSHAK: Moore’s accidental ‘law’ that proved true
A ‘wild extrapolation’ made in 1965 set the scene — and the pace — for the development of the computer industry
13 April 2023 - 05:00
What is now known as Moore’s law began when Intel co-founder Gordon Moore wrote a 1965 article for the 35th anniversary issue of Electronics magazine. It was titled “Cramming more components onto integrated circuits”, and in it Moore, then the director of research & development at Fairchild Semiconductor, stated his now famous prediction about the semiconductor industry.
“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, if not to increase,” he wrote...
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