Cloud Computing: Repealing Moore’s Law

Grazed from Business Standard.  Author: Editorial Staff.

 Every segment of computing is likely to see a tectonic shift over the next few years. The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, an advisory issued by experts from the global semiconductor industry, makes it clear that computer design and architecture must seek new paths. Processing power will not increase at the same exponential pace any more. Moore’s Law – the paradigm which underpinned research and development (R&D) for the last 50 years – is finally hitting physical limits.

In 1965, Gordon Moore, then Director of Research at Fairchild Semiconductors, observed that the numbers of transistors on integrated circuits doubled every year. This implied that processing power (the number of calculations per second) would also roughly double every year. He thought this rate of doubling would continue for a decade. Mr Moore proceeded to co-found chipmaker, Intel, in 1968. In 1975, Mr Moore "downgraded" projections, estimating that doubling would occur every two years…