Extrapolating from current trends

The capabilities of current-generation processor technology are beginning to push against some significant physical limits that we can expect to constrain the rate of performance growth going forward. These limits certainly will not lead to an abrupt end of improvements in circuit density and clock speed; rather, capability improvements for future processor generations may take place in directions that differ from traditional semiconductor capability growth patterns. To look more closely at future processor performance growth expectations, we begin by returning to Moore’s law and examining its applicability to the future of semiconductor technology.

Moore’s law revisited

The revised version of Moore’s law, published by Gordon Moore in 1975, predicted the number of integrated circuit components per device would double roughly every two years. This law has demonstrated remarkable predictive accuracy for several decades,...