Moore's Law to Hold for the Next Several Generations

http://futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/10/10096888-four-atom-wide-wire-may-herald-tiny-computers

Looks like Ohm's law is still valid down to the atomic scale, which means that Moore's law will likely last a few more generations that people originally thought.

The funny thing is I just finished a book, published this year, explaining that Moore's law is about to break down and that this will lead to a decade of slow to little technological development. It amazes me how quickly technology seems to be progressing this century, despite the fact that the current corporate environment favors small innovations to existing technology rather than high-risk research. Guess we must have hit some sort of point where technological advancement becomes easier? Who knows, it is still welcome news that we have given Moore's law yet another bump.

Yet, at the same time this means we're looking at the definite end of Moore's law. Once you start making wires and electronics out of single atoms, that's as small as it'll get. Nevertheless, it is pretty impressive that such a simple law such as Ohm's should hold true at such a small scale.

Neutron wires baby! And then we go Beyond the Impossible and have electron wires! Then quark wires! And from then on my knowledge of subatomic physics hits a brick wall.

superstring wires, then micro-singularity wires.

And then we go wireless for all circuitry.

The limiting factor hasn't been the size of transistors for a long time now, it's been heat. Doesn't matter how powerful your computer is if it's running hotter than a rocket nozzle.

Besides, memristance is coming along well enough that in many applications it'll be more useful than traditional chip architecture anyway. Being able to savestate/resume your entire system in a handful of clock cycles and work the hard drive directly into your computing circuitry is a pretty damn powerful notion.

edited 10th Jan '12 5:20:09 PM by Pykrete

Ok, if that REALLY works then it's good for buying more time to develop replacement system...original 10 years is definitely not enough...