Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore's prediction that chip dimensions will continue to halve at the same time as they double in speed every 18 months could soon be redundant.
That's according to two scientists working with IBM who are addressing this seemingly self-fulfilling prophesy from two entirely different angles. While one says Moore's Law could be running out of steam, the other says processor evolution could actually accelerate beyond its remit.
Last month, esteemed research fellow Carl Anderson from IBM's systems & technology group told the 2009 International Symposium on Physical Design in San Diego, California, that the end was nigh for Moore's Law.
According to the EETimes, Anderson said: "There was exponential growth in the railroad industry in the 1800s; there was exponential growth in the automobile industry in the 1930s and 1940s; and there was exponential growth in the performance of aircraft until the speed of sound. But eventually exponential growth always comes to an end."
The end of the road for Moore's Law is an old IT chestnut. The eighteen-month time-frame it describes is a slight misnomer anyway as Gordon Moore actually referred to two years. But Anderson pointed out that only a few of today's high-end chip makers could afford the R&D costs to keep pushing the envelope. As a caveat, he said that optical interconnects, 3-D chips and accelerator-based processing were still set for exponential growth.
Meanwhile, over at the UK's Leeds University, scientists working with IBM Research’s Zurich lab have invented "racetrack" memory. Like flash, racetrack memory has no moving parts – instead, it is the information that moves. Using a kind of physics called spin transfer, scientists use electrons (in the form of electrical current) to switch the magnetism of their domains, pushing them to a different location along a nanowire.
The new research holds up a magnifying glass to how tiny magnetic devices behave. Using a special electron microscope that can ‘see’ magnetism, scientists imaged a wall between two domains that lies in a notch in the side of the wire. This site, called a pinning centre, is where information starts and stops on its journey along the wire. The researchers were then able to measure the current that was needed to blow the wall out of differently shaped notches. The aim is to be able to reduce the current, and hence power, needed to move the information along the wire.
"The tremendous amount of storage, faster performance and reduced energy requirements, make it a nice green and smart technology," said Dr Chris Marrows, reader in condensed matter physics at Leeds University, pointing out that such solid state technology is not dependent on the miniaturisation dictated by Moore’s Law.
"This will allow us to take a chip and increase its [transistor] volume 10 to 100 times, breaking Moore's Law," he said.
Back in the here and now, Moore's Law seems to be holding true firmly enough. Last week, the IBM Technology Alliance, which includes Samsung and AMD spin-off Globalfoundries, announced a move toward 28 nanometer processor technology. The development should ensure that Moore's dictum holds sway for a few more years to come.