Karlgaard: Moore’s Law Rocks On
A major barrier to further improvement in processor speed has been pushed to the wayside (link is to KeepMedia, where about 20% of the article and none of the material excerpted below is present; full article requires Forbes subscription):
Last month (Intel) said it was exiting the silicon business–in a manner of speaking.
….. as wires and switches are shrunk and packed ever closer together, with thinner and thinner silicon insulation, the chance of current leakage rises. Experts have long predicted that this leakage, or “tunneling,” would bring Moore’s Law to a halt. And when that happened, there would be a dramatic slowing of new technology products and tech-driven industrial productivity.
Bad news indeed. Not just for the tech industry but for the American tech-driven economy.
Thanks to Intel, it seems we’ll dodge this bullet. Intel’s new insulator replaces silicon dioxide with a metallic alloy called hafnium. This alloy isn’t new–it’s been used as a neutron absorber in nuclear power plants–but hafnium’s use as a chip insulator required a fabrication breakthrough. Intel apparently has made it. Using hafnium insulators, Intel has built prototype chips that are 45 nanometers wide and run Windows, Mac OS X and Linux software. No leakage. These chips require much less electricity and generate less heat, too.
New Era of Products–and Productivity
Intel’s breakthrough–a competitive IBM-AMD joint project that also uses hafnium is close behind–will give new life to Moore’s Law. We’ll soon see cell phones capable of storing movie-length videos. Better yet, we’ll see products we can’t even imagine today, just as few of us imagined the iPod ten years ago.
Best of all, the motive force in today’s dynamic U.S. and global economies still has room to run. As Brian Wesbury, chief economist of First Trust Advisors, notes: “This type of progress is symbolic of the entire New Era Economy. Productivity is booming. And rapid productivity growth explains why corporate profits, jobs and income growth have all accelerated at the same time.”
Moore’s Law triumphs again. Full speed ahead.
The only downside I see is that “Hafnium Valley” doesn’t have the same ring to it.
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UPDATE: Here’s more from USA Today.
