Thursday, January 18, 2007

Will Moore's Law Be Broken?

Found on iTWire (via Slashdot):

Nano-scale architecture developed in the research labs of Hewlett-Packard could beat Moore's Law and advance the progress of of microprocessor development three generations in one hit. The new architecture uses a design technique that will enable chip makers to pack eight times as many transistors as is currently possible.


From my basic understanding, Moore's Law is an empirical relationship showing the number of transistors within a state-of-the-art computer chip (which is what controls how fast your computer is) doubles every two years. Hence, if you bought your computer two years ago, the new computers are twice as fast. If this report is true, we'll be getting an unexpected 6-year jump in computer speed...

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