Many scientists agree that Moore’s Law — Intel’s guiding light to make chips smaller, faster and cheaper — is dying. The company is now revisiting some of the metrics in a bid to keep it alive.
The landmark Moore’s Law observation, which is now more than 50 years old, keeps shapeshifting as the physical challenges of making smaller chips mounts.
Many scientists agree that Moore’s Law is dying, but Intel is clinging on to it for dear life. It has been Intel’s guiding light for making chips smaller, faster and cheaper.
Now, Intel is changing the way it measures process technology advancements, which will help the company continue to boast about hitting key Moore’s Law metrics in terms of economics and the shrinking of chip sizes.
Primarily, the company is changing the way it measures logic transistor density, using a wider cell width.
« Moore’s Law is not dead, at least not for us, » said Stacy Smith, Intel’s executive vice president leading manufacturing, operations and sales, during an event to talk about manufacturing in San Francisco on Tuesday.
At its heart, Moore’s Law states that the cost of making chips goes down while the capabilities go up. Intel’s interpretation of Moore’s Law has changed multiple times. Initially, Intel was doubling transistors every 18 months, which then expanded to two years. On its most recent 14-nanometer process, that time line expanded to three years.
With the new measurements, Intel will be able to boast that its manufacturing improvements are surpassing Moore’s Law. The company also said it would cut the manufacturing cost per transistor by half with each new manufacturing process, which is in line with Moore’s Law.
But there are caveats to the new metrics. Intel is making multiple changes and introducing more chip architectures on each manufacturing process, and advancing to new processes at a slower pace.
Later this year, Intel will start making chips using the 10-nm process, which is being projected to last for roughly three years.
