AI and Moore’s Law: It’s the Chips, Stupid

Moore's Law has evolved from a 60-year-old observation about transistor density doubling every 18 months into an economic principle focused on the 50% cost reduction of chips per silicon area. Achieving this economic effect now relies on techniques like multiple cores, System-On-Chip design, and unified memory, as physically etching thinner lines becomes increasingly difficult.

Sorry I’ve been away: time flies when you are not having fun. But now I’m back. Moore’s Law, which began with a random observation by the late Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that transistor densities on silicon substrates were doubling every 18 months, has over the intervening 60+ years been both borne-out yet also changed from a lithography technical feature to an economic law. It’s getting harder to etch ever-thinner lines, so we’ve taken as a culture to emphasizing the cost part of Moore’s Law chips drop in price by 50 percent on an area basis dollars per acre of silicon every 18 months . We can accomplish this economic effect through a variety of techniques including multiple cores, System-On-Chip design, and unified memory — anything to … The post AI and Moore’s Law: It’s the Chips, Stupid first appeared on I, Cringely.