# The end of Moore's law **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 11, 2008, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519 "2008-06-11T01:14:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/1 "2008-06-11T01:14:29Z")
I just read that moore’s law is expected to flat-out end with 15 nm. We’re at 45 nm now. 15nm is six years away. Ignoring 3D chips and all that, will silicon progress really freeze in six years? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/2 "2008-06-11T01:30:56Z")
There are other ways to increase processor capacity even if this statement proves true. The biggest one has already become standard. Movement toward parallel computation with multiple processor cores expands computation capability greatly without any additional shrinkage in transistors. There is no reason to think that overall processing speed will halt at a certain point then and that is the key point. Supercomputers are already built from off the shelf AMD and Intel processors running in parallel proving that it can be done. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/3 "2008-06-11T01:35:30Z")
[QUOTE=Shagnasty] There are other ways to increase processor capacity even if this statement proves true. [/QUOTE] [Moore’s Law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_Law) does not directly address processor capacity or computational power, although it is often mistakenly interpreted as such. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/4 "2008-06-11T01:50:46Z")
[QUOTE=Q.E.D.] [Moore’s Law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_Law) does not directly address processor capacity or computational power, although it is often mistakenly interpreted as such. [/QUOTE] The misinterpretaion is the part that matters. Nobody gives a rat’s ass about how the improvements happen. We just expect faster computers every year. There are many ways that will continue to happen and there is no reason to think it won’t continue to improve at the current rate. Intel and AMD already have new chips in the pipeline to be released several years from now. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/5 "2008-06-11T02:07:39Z")
[QUOTE=Shagnasty] The misinterpretaion is the part that matters. Nobody gives a rat’s ass about how the improvements happen. [/QUOTE] Nobody except the OP, you mean. He didn’t ask about processing capacity, he specifically asked about the limitations of silicon fabrication processes. You can argue all you want about how computing power will continue to expand, and I won’t disagree with that, but it doesn’t address the OP’s question. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/6 "2008-06-11T02:35:28Z")
I recall that 100nm or so was the limits of physics for chips not so long ago (perhaps a decade). Now its 15nm. Draw your own conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/7 "2008-06-11T03:02:35Z")
I used to make IC masks with e-beam lithography. We were at 1µ then, and everyone was worried about how to get past the limits of deep UV, and when was it going to be necessary to use X-ray or e-beam lithography. Well, that was 25 years ago, and the IC industry is sill using UV… ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/8 "2008-06-11T03:49:44Z")
Btw, the 15nm figure I got from IBM’s ‘chief technologist’ interviewed in [Forbes](http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/06/09/ibm-moores-law-tech-cionetwork-cx_es_0609ibm.html). IBM manufactures a good fraction of the world’s chips. [QUOTE=Bernard Meyerson] The behavior of semiconductors goes quantum mechanical when you get down to 10 nanometers. After that you have to do nuclear fission, which is not something I want to be around to see. … We will go to 22 nanometers and then to 15 nanometers and that’s pretty much it. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/9 "2008-06-11T13:22:42Z")
Ultimately the fact that matter is atomic sets some absolute limit. We probably are nearing the end of silicon photolithography, at which point it becomes a question of what sort of molecular circuit fabrication (nanowires, etc) might become commercially feasible. There’s still room for several generations of improvement. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/10 "2008-06-11T17:40:13Z")
I think the key is to “not” ignore 3D fabrication and such. Moore’s Law (I’ve met him BTW, nice guy) is to a large degree a self-fulfilling prophecy. It gives management a goal when they do a product road map. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/11 "2008-06-11T18:02:23Z")
[QUOTE=Alex\_Dubinsky] Btw, the 15nm figure I got from IBM’s ‘chief technologist’ interviewed in [Forbes](http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/06/09/ibm-moores-law-tech-cionetwork-cx_es_0609ibm.html). IBM manufactures a good fraction of the world’s chips. [/QUOTE] IBM’s share of world-wide chip manufacturing is tiny, although that does not negate the comments made by their technologists. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/12 "2008-06-11T20:53:01Z")
[QUOTE=Shagnasty] The misinterpretaion is the part that matters. Nobody gives a rat’s ass about how the improvements happen. We just expect faster computers every year. There are many ways that will continue to happen and there is no reason to think it won’t continue to improve at the current rate. Intel and AMD already have new chips in the pipeline to be released several years from now. [/QUOTE] Being in the microprocessor design business, I do. In a short term the biggest reason why it is taking longer to get to new nodes is economics. It is costing more and more to build fabs, and more and more companies are dropping out of the fab business (such as LSI Logic.) Soon it will be Intel and the Taiwan fabs, and that’s about it. Second, no one but microprocessor, DSP and Graphics chip makers care about being at the newest node, since no one else has the volumes to justify mask costs. Third, raw clock speed isn’t as much of a selling point, since it comes at the expense of power usage. The reason for multicore designs is to reduce power and to reduce design time, since a lot of the chip is made up of cores that get designed once. Since everyone has the same problem, companies aren’t competing on clock speeds any more. We will hit the wall eventually, since we are getting to features a couple of atoms in height. Dan is right, that the law is an observation, not a law, and has held more because people assumed it when defining roadmaps than anything else. I’ve seen a chart somewhere showing how the law actually has held long before ICs even existed, so it might hold after ICs become cheap commodity parts only. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/13 "2008-06-11T23:15:47Z")
Of course I realize that 15 nm is not the end. But what I wanted to know was if the IBM guy’s assertion was correct: that 15 nm will be the last node. Will in six years we produce the last generation of silicon? And btw, stuff like 3D chips and parallelism will not be the same kind of free lunch as Moore’s Law. If you want to gang up 100 dies to work together, chances are you’ll be able to (solely from a technical point of view. In fact a big challenge is making fast-enough networks that let the chips communicate to do work. 3D stacking and optics are the offered solutions for that.) But the real problem is you will still need to manufacture 100 dies. How will we reduce per-wafer costs 100-fold? Through the years, wafer costs have held steady as a rock. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/14 "2008-06-11T23:56:02Z")
Take a look at [this comparison](http://www.icknowledge.com/economics/wafer_costs.html) of wafer costs from 2003. It’s a table that lists costs in that year given process node, wafer size, and number of layers (since, it seems, chips are already sort of 3D?). The cost of a wafer divided by its size and number of layers is the exact same 0.1-0.2 cents/mm^2/layer no matter if you compare the cutting edge (in 2003) 90nm to the 20+ year-old 2um! The flip side of the same argument is that you’ll need 100 times as much fab capacity. The cost of fabs, of course, hasn’t even held steady. It’s grown exponentially. How will we manufacture all those dies? ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/15 "2008-06-12T02:48:04Z")
It’s not dies; it’s dice. And current photolithography has its limitations, but who’s to say that photolithography will be the status quo moving forward? ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/16 "2008-06-12T02:55:23Z")
[QUOTE=Leaffan] It’s not dies; it’s dice. [/QUOTE] Sorry, but no. _Dies_ is the preferred plural form based on industry usage. Dice are for Las Vegas. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/17 "2008-06-12T03:03:20Z")
[QUOTE=Q.E.D.] Sorry, but no. _Dies_ is the preferred plural form based on industry usage. Dice are for Las Vegas. [/QUOTE] Not here. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/18 "2008-06-12T03:56:30Z")
[QUOTE=Leaffan] It’s not dies; it’s dice. [/QUOTE] What are you talking aboot? ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/19 "2008-06-12T04:05:37Z")
I found some more. Here’s an [article](http://news.cnet.com/Intel-scientists-find-wall-for-Moores-Law/2100-1008_3-5112061.html) about Intel saying essentially the same thing five years ago: > [@](#): > > When the length of the gate gets below 5 nanometers, however, tunneling will begin to occur. Electrons will simply pass through the channel on their own, because the source and the drain will be extremely close. (A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.) > > “Where you have a barrier, the electrons penetrate a certain distance,” he said. “Once the two regions are close enough, because of tunneling, the charge will go from A to B, even when a voltage is not applied to the gate.” > > At this point, a transistor becomes unreliable as a source of basic data, because the probability of spontaneous transmission is about 50 percent. In other words, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is in action, because the location of the electrons can’t be accurately predicted. > > In chips made on a 16-nanometer technology process, the transistor gate will be about 5 nanometers long. > > … > > The tunneling effects, Gargini said, will occur regardless of the chemistry of the transistor materials. Several researchers over the years have predicted the end of Moore’s Law but made the mistake of extrapolating on the basis of existing materials. > > The concept behind the Intel researchers’ paper was, “why don’t we do something based entirely on fundamental principles?” Gargini said. “The beauty of our paper is that it is independent of materials.” > > … > > Carbon nanotubes and silicon nanowires are another alternative. Transistors made of these materials are of comparable sizes. … In the end, performance could go up–and energy consumption could decline–but size will stay about the same Shit. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2008, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519/20 "2008-06-12T05:59:37Z")
[QUOTE=Alex\_Dubinsky] And btw, stuff like 3D chips and parallelism will not be the same kind of free lunch as Moore’s Law. If you want to gang up 100 dies to work together, chances are you’ll be able to (solely from a technical point of view. In fact a big challenge is making fast-enough networks that let the chips communicate to do work. 3D stacking and optics are the offered solutions for that.) But the real problem is you will still need to manufacture 100 dies. How will we reduce per-wafer costs 100-fold? Through the years, wafer costs have held steady as a rock. [/QUOTE] There are ways to stack transistors on the same wafer. Sorry, too lazy to cite. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-moores-law/452519.md?page=2)