According to Wikipedia, Moore's Law is defined as "the empirical observation made in 1965 that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit for minimum component cost doubles every 24 months." Basically, the theorem states the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double every 18 months, thereby increasing the computing power per unit cost. While CPUs initially seemed to follow the trend predicted by Moore's Law quite closely, advancements have stalled as processors have become more complicated, requiring more complex engineering hurdles to be overcome before major breakthroughs in processor manufacturing can be made. This has led to much hand wringing over the "death of Moore's Law" in recent years. If a new advancement from researchers at HP serves as any indication, however, CPUs may be able to catch up with Moore yet again--by bending the rules of the game a bit.
According to HP engineers, it may be possible to dramatically reduce the physical size of a chip while increasing its performance and power efficiency, by replacing the communication wires in chips with a grid of tiny nanowires. "The issue here is we have--at least for one type of chip--proof in principle that it is possible to increase chip density, decrease power consumption, and increase operating speed without shrinking a transistor," said Stan Williams, an HP senior fellow and director of the HP Labs Quantum Science Research group.
For more on the advancement:
- see this ZDnet article
