The implied increase in power is meant to transform into more-meaningful computing

Picture: Krbo (Flickr)

The PC industry has faithfully followed Moores Law since Gordon Moore first announced in 1965 that the density of transistors on a chip will double every year. What many people dont know is that Moores law was actually revised in 1975 to state that the density doubles every two years instead. Things have been a bit shaky of late and this law is stagnating. The announcement of Intels 8th Gen CPU, which is still being powered by a 14nm processor, effectively means that weve had the same chip density on the market for some five years. So is Moores law dead? Many say it is. I disagree.

Moores Law, from a purists point of view, has always been about computing power. But it isnt just about cramming more transistors into a space. Instead, its about making computing power affordable for the masses. Take a step back and think about the first man on the moon and colour TVs, then the progression to the personal computer what is the true meaning of Moores law?

I interpret these critical points as cost reduction, practical usage, and sub-components working as part of an overall system that is affordable, accessible, usable and purposeful.

Depending on who you ask within the industry, the interpretation of Moores Law differs. In Moores reasoning, it is a log-linear relationship between device complexity (higher circuit density at reduced cost) and time. Simply put, it is more-meaningful computing power at affordable prices. This triggers a secondary off-shoot (or complementary law) of Moores Law, which is Rocks Law, but we can save that one for another time.

So does that mean that Moores Law is akin to a moving goal post? It isnt about more transistors crammed into a set area; its a changing set of guidelines for people to make more meaningful systems. After all, what good is a processor on its own anyway?

To better understand this point, lets look quickly to PC history for some clues.

A quick historical recap (Source: Professor Wouter Den Haan, Chair LSE)

1970 mechanical calculators, repetitive retyping, file cards, filing cabinets

1970s. Memory typewriters, electronic calculators

1980s. PCs with word processing and spreadsheets

Late 1980s. E-mail, electronic catalogues, T-1 lines, proprietary software

Late 1990s. The web, search engines, e-commerce

2000-05 flat screens, airport check-in kiosks

By 2005 the revolution in business practices was almost over

From 2005 until now, offices use proprietary information, desktop computers and laptops in pretty much the same way they did post-1994. The current major tech companies and trends that we consider as recent champions of tech growth are Amazon (1994), Google (1998), Wikipedia (2001), iTunes (2001), BlackBerry (2003), Facebook (2004), the iPhone (2007) and the iPad (2010). The effect of the smartphone boom in 2007 and the tablet boom of 2010 I think needs to be discussed separately and I will leave that for another date. It is important to note however, that both inventions have not transformed the way business is done at its core unlike, say, email, the Internet and the PC, which have.

The smartphone and tablet are improvements on a category that have already done most of its disruptiveness in the office. The advent of smart watches and Fitbit-like devices can now be seen mostly as a fad that failed to go mainstream and it is something that I personally was challenged with launching into a few years ago. I would say our team did a great job in bypassing this category at the time (IOT and smart devices still have a place, just not for us right now). We also argued that tablets would go the way of Netbooks (remember them?) and it looks like they are not a category that will be able to stand by themselves. We have an onslaught of 2-in-1 devices coming and they seem to be a rather logical evolution of the notebook PC, taking the good elements from tablets and becoming a meaningful device for some users, but for now, lets go back to Moores law.

To put it really simply, Moores Law means something different to everyone. For me as a computer designer, it means making powerful computers that are affordable and useful. Hence, from that perspective, I think Moores Law is far from dead. Thus, as a team, we are going to carry on making more powerful computers that can do more, not just because they have double the density of transistors, but because this implied increase in power is meant to transform into more-meaningful computing. At the end of the day, wouldnt having better battery life, a faster hard drive, better screen and Wi-Fi be meaningless unless it amounted to better performance and a more positive value-added computing experience? If we could also keep it affordable, then Moores Law is well and truly alive and it continues to benefit us all.

A sustainability angle should probably also be added to it i.e. we need to think of the full product life-cycle of a device and its flow-on effects of its own ecosystem (e.g. cable, etc). After all, Moores law has changed before and it can be adjusted again.

Error: Please check your email address.

Tags notebooksintelVenom Computers

See the article here:

There's more to Moore's Law than transistor counts - PC World