science & techanalysisOur World in Data1965–2020s
Moore's law has held for 50 years, with transistor counts doubling about every two years
In 1965, Gordon Moore, then at Fairchild Semiconductor and later a co-founder of Intel, observed that the number of transistors packed onto an integrated circuit was doubling roughly every year. He later revised it to about every two years, and that rate has broadly held for five decades. Each doubling roughly halves the cost per transistor and shrinks devices, which is why a phone now carries billions of transistors that once filled rooms. Engineers achieved this through steady miniaturisation, better lithography and new materials, though the pace has been slowing in recent years. What began as a prediction became a planning target for the whole industry, guiding investment and product roadmaps for generations of chips.
A transistor is a tiny switch made of semiconductor material. Chipmakers print patterns of transistors using light and chemistry, and shrinking those patterns lets more fit on the same chip, so each new generation packs in more switches for similar cost.
Moore's law explains why computing has become cheaper and more powerful at such a steady rate. It also set expectations across the tech economy, so its slowdown matters for everything from phones to AI hardware.
Gordon Moore's original 1965 prediction was for doubling every year, a figure he later revised.
background
Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years, with minimal increase in cost. Despite the name, Moore's law describes an empirical relationship, not a scientific law. This type of observation, an experience curve effect, quantifies efficiency gains from learned experience in production.
The observation is named after Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel and former Chief Executive Officer of the latter, who in 1965 noted that the number of components per integrated circuit had been doubling every year, and projected that this rate of growth would continue for at least another decade. In 1975, looking forward to the next decade, he revised the forecast to doubling every two years, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 41%. Moore's empirical evidence did not imply that the historical trend would continue; nevertheless, his prediction has held since 1975 and has since become known as a law.
From Wikipedia: Moore's law (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
