Abiding By Moore's Law

A major breakthrough in semiconductor technology by both Intel and IBM has the semiconductor industry all abuzz, and for good reason. Since the early '60's, computer technology has improved at such a pace that computer performance and cost have roughly doubled every 20 months, and the size has roughly halved. This is known as Moore's Law, after the man who first voiced this observation of the computer industry. Unfortunately, as the computer chips scale down in size, the material used as an insulator inside transistors becomes too thin to insulate them properly, leaking energy and producing additional heat. This in turn makes the chip burn more energy as additional energy is required to replace the electricity that has leaked from the transistors, which of course makes the chip run even hotter.

For some time, semicondutor manufacturers have been trying to overcome this size limitation, and it didn't look like Moore's Law would be able to provide the technological breakthrough needed. Until now. Both Intel and IBM have overcome this leakage by replacing the insulator material inside the transistors with a better material, allowing the transistors to be built even smaller for cheaper prices. With the transistors size decreasing, more transistors can be built into the chip, increasing the performance for the size of the chip.

These smaller, cheaper, and faster computer chips will be available commercially in the second half of 2007 and by mid-2008.