Moore's Law

Moore's Law is an observation made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965. It states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles roughly every two years, while the cost of production decreases. This leads to an exponential growth in computing power. Although called a "law," it is not a physical law of nature, but rather a rule of thumb and a target that guided the semiconductor industry for decades. By making transistors smaller—now down to the scale of individual atoms—engineers have transitioned us from room-sized mainframes to powerful smartphones in our pockets. In recent years, physical limits like overheating and quantum effects have started to slow this doubling pace down.

Imagine if your car became twice as fast and used half as much fuel every two years, for the same price. After 20 years, it would be over a thousand times more efficient than when you bought it.

Moore's Law has been the driving engine behind the digital revolution. It explains why the smartphone in your pocket today is millions of times more powerful than the computers that put humans on the moon.

Many people think Moore's Law is an inevitable law of physics. In reality, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy maintained by engineering ingenuity and massive industrial investments.