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Is Moore's Law Still Relevant? - Print

http://w ww .tomshardw are.com/new s/intel-tri-gate-3d-transistor-CPU-moores-law,12710.html

4:50 PM - May 6, 2011 by W olfgang Gruene r
Source: Tom's Hardw are US

It will bring more processing speed, lowe r power consumption and, as a result, greater computing efficiency on a w ide scale. At the core of all of this is
Moore's Law , which is guarante ed to be upheld for a few more years. But is it still relevant?
Moore's Law , an observation described by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in a 1965 paper published in the 35th anniversary edition of Electronic
Maga zine (PDF), come s up every other year, usually w hen Intel is introducing a nother new manufacturing processing and shrinks transistor sizes. Every
other year, Moore's Law is frequently misquoted and interpreted in countless w ays. W e are now used to a scenario in which this observation has turned
into a law of nature in the chip manufa cturing industry and appears to have become the major force to drive semiconductor innovation.
Moore's Law and a prediction 46 years ago
If you spend half an hour to read and think about Moore's paper and today's Moore's Law discussion, you might come across some interesting
implications. Moore's observation does not imply that microprocessors w ill accelerate by a factor of 2X every 18-24 months. Moore discussed the
performance gains of a proce ssor very briefly, but he also discussed the reduction of manufacturing cost in (5-ye ar) intervals. There is no direct claim
that the processing speed will double every 2 years. Wha t Moore observed, however, is that the transistor count roughly doubles in 2-year intervals -
and if w e are picky about his claims, then it is clear that Moore also suggested that there is a time limit to this trend and that it w ill slow down over time.
Moore's famous observa tion chart reaches until 1975, but carries the notion that there is no visible end to it. In 2007, w hen we were about to get the
first 45 nm processors, Moore w as quoted saying that he would expect his observation to reach another 15 years into the 2020 - 2022 time frame, but
hit a definite w all then. How ever, he said the same in 2001, when 90 nm CPUs arrived in 2003 and it appea rs that the 15 year prediction can be pushed
out in 2 year intervals. Let me just note that Moore's paper is not just about the tra nsistor count. It also includes pre dictions that microproce ssors could
be produced at 100% yield rates and that there is a substantial heat problem cre eping up on denser chip structures (something that force d Intel to
abandon its Netburst architecture used for the Pentium 4 generation from 1999 to 2005). He also predicted that there is a manufacturing limit to two-
dimensional chip structures, which implies that the industry w ould have to go 3D at some point in time, w hich appears to be happening in 2011/2012, at
lea st as far as Intel is concerned. I am actually somew hat surprised that Intel did not point out this prediction during the 22 nm announceme nt.
Benefits
Over time, Moore's Law has turned into a guideline for the IT industry, a guideline that cannot be broken. It is widely credite d to ha ve enabled
affordable computers that can run virtually every a pplication you would w ant to run. How ever, Moore's Law has also be en somewhat abused as a
ma rketing tool to justify new processors and force innovation into a tight pair of shoes, that was not always the best choice, such as Intel's Netburst
products that turned out to be a dead end and almost brought the company down to its knees. Transistor size and count is one component of
innovation, but not the only one and probably not the key component of to enable new and intelligent se miconductors anymore.
More transistors are more likely to ena ble more feature s and we are most likely in a time that requires a pile of new features to cope w ith the current
trends of computing. Proce ssors need to become more se cure, they need to be better able to efficiently identify threats in cloud computing
environments (which would include your usage of online services) and they need to become vastly more scalable a s we move toward hete rogene ous
processor archite ctures. Transistor count is an e nabler of these fea tures, but I belie ve w e give Moore's law more credit toda y than w e should and it
directs our a ttention occasionally in the wrong direction.
Market forces
Competitive forces are likely to be driving especially Intel's R&D much more than Moore's Law. Over the past tw o decades, it was AMD Inte l had to deal
with. Intel always considered its production capabilities and manufacturing process as its key competitive advantage and is unlikely to give that up at
any time soon. Now Intel is dealing w ith ARM and an army of chip designers such as Qua lcomm, Samsung, Nvidia, TI and possible AMD as well that own
the mobile space that Intel w ants a part of so desperately. Once again, it w ill a new manufacturing proce ss that will be Intel's major weapon in this
fight. Once again, it is competition that drives the transistor count down, not necessarily Moore's Law (which, however, will be upheld by Intel with a
late 2011 release of these processors.)
Of course, there is the que stion of the relevance of Moore's La w today. Do you re ally care whether Intel can kee p this 2-yea r cycle going for another 10
years? Probably not - and (enthusiast) consume rs probably care less than they did 10 years ago. There are plenty of examples in Intel's manufacturing
history that show that a processor is much more than just a bout transistor count. If you have bee n around for some time, you may especially remember
that Intel's forme r CTO Pat Gelsinger predicted in 2001 that we would be using 30 GHz processors by 2010 that would need cooling techniques similar
to that used in nuclear power plants. By 2005, the company hit a w all just under 4 GHz and completely changed its approach and chip design to cope
with pow er consumption and leaking current. These are the milestones that change trends and deliver the true innovation we are benefiting from. It is a
radically different approach to envision the feature set and capability of a processor - and our ability to squeeze more intelligence into every single
transistor and not just squeeze more transistors into a certain area.
The tri-gate transistor w ill enable Intel again to double the transistor count by building 3D structures and creating more transistors in the same area
space. You may interpret Moore's law that Intel is cheating a bit as you could consider Moore's paper to be simply referring to 2D structure s and the
even area they occupy. But honestly: W ho really cares? If there are more transistors, it's good for everyone and it is likely to make processors better.
How ever, the fact that the transistor count is doubling may be rather irrelevant today - which does not discount Moore's observa tion. W e may simply be
too obsessed with keeping this observation a live.

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