Moore’s Law Turns 60

In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore predicted in an industry publication that the semiconductor industry could double the number of transistors on a chip of a fixed size every two years. That rule of thumb turned 60 this year, and chipmakers are sticking with it.

Image Source: ASML

ASML, a company that supplies lithography equipment to semiconductor component manufacturers, commemorated the anniversary of this rule of thumb on its YouTube channel by publishing an excerpt from an archived interview with Gordon Moore himself, who passed away a couple of years ago.

In the video, he recalls the circumstances under which the law named after him was formulated back in 1965. Moore began observing the dynamics of the increase in the number of transistors in semiconductor components in 1959, and for his article in the journal, he formulated the assumption that between 1965 and 1975, the number of transistors in the structure of chips would double every two years without a significant increase in cost. The latter condition is important, since it determines the economic foundations for the development of the semiconductor industry.

As Moore noted, in 1975 he compared the industry’s development history with his prediction and was very surprised at how accurate it turned out to be. His observational reasoning, he said, magically began to determine the pace of development of the semiconductor industry in the future. Lithography equipment plays a very important role in this process, since it allows the size of semiconductor elements to be reduced, pushing back the physical barriers to miniaturization further and further. At the end of the interview, Gordon Moore thanks ASML for this progress and wishes the company good luck.