Moore’s LawDynamics of a Technological Revolution

Thomas J. MisaCharles Babbage Institute

www.cbi.umn.edu

Plan for today

• Views of Moore’s Law (1965--)• What sort of “law”?• Turning points• Making a Law• Nothing about the future• CBI—what are we, who supports,

what do we do?

Views of

Moore’s Law (1)

Views of Moore’s Law (2)

Electronics

19 April 1965

Views of Moore’s 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 Moore’s Law (4)

Gordon Moore

Electronics

19 April 1965

Views of Moore’s 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 ‘Moore’s

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 1965-68)X CCD memoriesDRAM (early)Microprocessors (later). . . hard drives (Kryder’s law). . . software (Wirth’s 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 Mead’s evangelism (Moore’s data)

1965 | 1977 | 1987 | 1992 | 1998

• DSB “Task Force on Semiconductor Dependency” (1986)

• SEMATECH f. 1987 (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] Moore’s Law” (W.Maly CMU)

1965 | 1977 | 1987 | 1992 | 1998

• NTRS -> ITRS (SIA’s of US, Japan, Europe, S.Korea; later Taiwan)

• Moore’s 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 Capital’s Don Valentine:

“I just follow Moore’s Law and make a few guesses about its consequences.” (2005)

insight | invest | expect | public | popular

Investments (2)• Intel’s Craig Barrett (2002): “we

don’t adhere to Moore’s Law for the hell of it. It’s a fundamental expectation that everybody at Intel buys into. We dangle Moore’s 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 years—why the hell aren’t you?’”

insight | invest | expect | public | popular

Expectations• “If we can stay on the SIA

Roadmap, we can essentially stay on the [Moore’s 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?

What is CBI?• World’s leading

research collection on history of computing

• 200 archival collections

• 400 oral histories• 150,000 photos• “1 mile” of paper

records• 5 staff + students

Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

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 (1989-94)• Software History (NSF 1999-2003)• Documenting Internet2 (NA 2004-5)• IBM Rochester study (2005-6)• Computer services industry• E-government (NSF’s FastLane)• “Moore’s Law”

Archiving | Research | Publishing | Infrastructure

Archiving | Research | Publishing | Infrastructure

• Social Infrastructure– 20+ CBI-Tomash fellows– Local/inter/national networks…– Researchers, practitioners, financial

supporters

• Physical infrastructure

Archiving | Research | Publishing | 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