Summary
As Moore one of the fathers of the semiconductor industry turn 80 and the semiconductor industry on the biggest down turn in history, it is great opportunity to put things in perspective from one of the greatest entrepreneur of our time.
Analysis
As Moore define his observation in 1965 as "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits that later became as we know it "Moore's Law" - one of the greatest driving force for our modern times.
Moore believed that scientific advances affecting semiconductors could be crucial to economic growth, because an extensive range of applications would be found for more powerful devices in industry, government and national defense
He thought that it would depend on a tradeoff between the pace of scientific advance and the costs of producing more powerful devices
The following are some quotes from his original article from 1965.
“Integrated circuits will lead to such wonders as home computers – or at least terminals connected to a central computer – automatic controls for automobiles, and personal portable communications equipment. The electronic wristwatch needs only a display to be feasible today.”
“… the biggest potential lies in the production of large systems. In telephone communications, integrated circuits in digital filters will separate channels on multiplex equipment. Integrated circuits will also switch telephone circuits and perform data processing"
As the IC industry is progressing and many layers on the silicon chips are approaching atomic scale we might be facing a unsurmountable wall that might hamper the future development of the chip technology.
However most of the development that the industry had gone through during the last 40 years were the so called "Planar" transistor. In order to keep Moore's law alive we need to resort to third dimension and develop 3D technology where by we will stack either several level of transistors on the same chip, or will go to multi level chips the so called TSV(Through Silicon Via). In that case we will have many more years to keep the Moore's law alive.
