What Is Moore's Law?

The doubling of computing power every two years is referred to as Moore's Law. This law relates to the functions of digital electronic devices such as processing speed and memory capacity.

History

In 1965, the process described by Moore's Law was first written about by Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder on Intel. The phrase Moore's Law was "coined" by Professor Carver Mead in 1970.

Function

Moore's Law interprets technological change in the 20th and 21st century and how it impacts social change.

1975

In 1975, Gordon Moore definitively stated that computing power would double every two years. However, he was challenged by an Intel colleague who stated the power of integrated circuits within computers would double every 18 months.

Before Moore's Law

In 1950, Alan Turing wrote a paper that predicted the advance ability of memory by stating computers would be able to store a billion words at a time.

Publisher

On April 19, 1965, "Electronics" magazine published Gordon Moore's theory on size and memory, which explains how thousands of components will be built onto a space the size of a wafer.