SRAM Scaling: Beginning of the End? - by Nicholas Wilt

Moore’s Law, like Amdahl’s Law, always has been more of an observation than a law. It stemmed from Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, observing in 1965 that with process improvements, transistor density was doubling every year. Later, around 1975, he revised that estimate downward to a doubling every 2 years—still a prodigious growth rate. And ever since, there has been a drumbeat of predictions that Moore’s Law would come to an end, and ruminations on what would come next after that happened. Some perceived barriers, like the 1-micron barrier (or in today’s parlance, the 1,000-nm barrier) turned out essentially to be psychological, like the 4-minute mile. The perception that Moore’s Law might come to an unwelcome end has motivated investments in alternative technologies, like Josephson junctions or gallium arsenide as a substrate, for decades. The Parallel Programmer is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscribe

Moore’s Law, like Amdahl’s Law, always has been more of an observation than a law. It stemmed from Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, observing in 1965 that with process improvements, transistor density was doubling every year. Later, around 1975, he revised that estimate downward to a doubling every 2 years—still a prodigious growth rate. And ever since, there has been a drumbeat of predictions that Moore’s Law would come to an end, and ruminations on what would come next after that happened. Some perceived barriers, like the 1-micron barrier (or in today’s parlance, the 1,000-nm barrier) tur