Definition Edit

Moore’s Law refers to an observation by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation, in 1965, that the number of transistors per square inch on an integrated circuit had doubled every year since the development of the technology.

Overview Edit

The rate has since slowed to every 18 months, but the "law" has now been extended to refer to the processing power of a computer chip, memory capacity, and even the number and size of pixels in digital cameras.^[1] In other words, computers become faster at an explosive rate, or conversely, the price of a given level of computing power decreases at that same dramatic rate.

Both the computers through which users access the Internet, and the routers that transmit data within the Internet, are subject to the price/performance curve described by Moore's Law. At the same time, advances in data transmission technology have expanded the capacity of the Internet's backbone networks. As the bandwidth available through the network continues to grow, Moore's Law states that the price of obtaining a given level of bandwidth will continue to drop.

References Edit

1. ↑ National Research Council, "Measuring and Sustaining the New Economy, Software, Growth, and the Future of the U.S Economy: Report of a Symposium" 6 (Fig. 1) (Dale W. Jorgenson & Charles W. Wessner eds 2006) (full-text).

External links Edit

• Sally Adee, "37 Years of Moore's Law," IEEE Spectrum, May 2008 (full-text).
• Gordon E. Moore, "Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits," 38 Electronics, No. 8 (Apr. 19, 1965) (full-text).
• Jon Stokes, "Understanding Moore's Law" (full-text).