19 April 2025: Sixty Years of Moore’s Law: A Prophetic Vision Still Shaping the Digital Future

"The future of integrated electronics is the future of electronics itself." — Gordon E. Moore, Electronics Magazine, 1965

On April 19, 1965, a relatively unassuming article published in Electronics magazine by Gordon E. Moore, then Director of R&D at Fairchild Semiconductor and later co-founder of Intel Corporation, would go on to transform the digital world. Titled “Cramming more components onto integrated circuits”, the article predicted that the number of transistors on a silicon chip would double approximately every year, leading to exponential growth in computing capabilities and a decline in cost per function. This idea — later dubbed Moore’s Law — has become one of the most influential forecasts in the history of semiconductor technology.

The 1956 Nobel prize winning works in Physics of William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at the Bell Labs "for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect" led to the path breaking development of the wonder device, the transistor, a device that revolutionized electronics leading to the semiconductor industry. The Silicon Valley, Internet and the World Wide Web were technological triumphs of the late 20th Century. When this common architecture for digital information and communications became wedded to the broadband fixed and mobile networks, it brought together previously distinct communications markets for data, voice and broadcast content. This marriage allowed society to take full advantage of the technological benefits of new generation of computer architectures enabled by a very large array of cheap data storage and processors, which ushered us in to this modern world that is driven by path breaking technologies like the Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, 3D Printing and such other technologies that collectively are dubbed the IR4.0. Today as we celebrate the six decades of the prophetic vision of Gordon Moore, an attempt is made here to see how his vision has shaped the IT industry and its future.

Incidentally, I had published an article in Dream 2047, October 2006 issue, under the title “Gordon Moore, His Law and Integrated Circuits”, the link of the monthly magazine published by Vigyan Prasar, an autonomous organisation of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, is given below and my article can be found on page 35.  

 https://drive.google.com/drive/home

 

From Insight to Industry Doctrine

 

Moore’s prediction, based on just a handful of years of data from the nascent semiconductor industry, proved admirably accurate. Though he later revised the time frame to a doubling every two years, the essence of his vision — exponential progress through miniaturization — remained relevant. What’s more extraordinary is how this simple observation became a self-fulfilling prophecy, driving the semiconductor industry to adopt technology roadmaps and innovation cycles aligned with the pace Moore envisioned sixty years ago.

 

Moore’s Law catalysed decades of innovation. It enabled the proliferation of personal computers, smartphones, automated vehicles, and now, artificial intelligence. His forecast was made just four years after the development of the first planar integrated circuit by Robert Noyce, with whom Moore would go on to found Intel in 1968.

 

The Physics of Progress: Silicon and Beyond

 

Silicon, the backbone of modern electronics, is one of Earth’s most abundant elements, found widely in sand. It offered cost-effective scalability, and in the early decades, it was possible to follow Moore’s Law simply by shrinking transistor sizes. This led to the evolution from small-scale integration (SSI) to large-scale (LSI), very large-scale (VLSI), and eventually ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI) — packing billions of transistors into chips as small as fingernails.

 

Yet, as transistor dimensions approach the atomic scale (currently ~2 nanometres in leading-edge commercial chips), continuing this trend faces formidable challenges — quantum tunnelling, heat dissipation, and lithographic limitations. This has led to an industry-wide recognition that Moore’s Law is no longer a guarantee, but a goalpost that demands entirely new paradigms.

 

Rethinking Moore: Innovations That Keep the Vision Alive

 

The semiconductor industry is actively working to extend Moore’s Law, despite facing physical limits. Traditional scaling, where transistors shrink to nanometre scales, is becoming challenging due to silicon constraints and heat dissipation issues. However, research suggests solutions like advanced packaging (e.g., Intel’s RibbonFET and PowerVia with Intel 20A and 18A processes) and new materials (e.g., graphene, carbon nanotubes) are being explored. Intel aims for a trillion transistors on a package by 2030 (Intel’s Commitment to Moore’s Law), and the industry is adopting "More than Moore" strategies, integrating non-silicon technologies for enhanced functionality.

 

The semiconductor industry is trying to constantly push the boundaries by diversifying its approaches, which include among others;

 

1. Advanced Node Fabrication: Companies like TSMC, Intel, and Samsung are pushing sub-3nm nodes using EUV lithography and novel Gate-All-Around FETs to improve performance and energy efficiency.

 

2. Chiplet and 3D Integration: Instead of making one massive chip, companies are designing modular chiplets connected via high-speed interconnects, allowing scaling without shrinking.

 

3. Materials Innovation: Beyond silicon, compound semiconductors (e.g., GaN, SiC), 2D materials like graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), are being explored to create faster and more efficient transistors.

 

4. Photonic and Neuromorphic Computing: Integrating light-based data transmission and brain-inspired computing architectures is yielding advances in speed and efficiency.

 

Quantum Computing: The Next Paradigm Shift

 

As we commemorate 60 years of Moore’s Law today, the world also celebrates the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (2025). The timing is symbolic — we stand at a potential inflection point where quantum computing may redefine what “scaling” means.

 

Quantum computing doesn’t follow Moore’s Law per se, but it opens an entirely new dimension of parallelism and problem-solving. With qubits instead of bits, and superposition instead of binary logic, quantum systems can address complex problems in materials science, cryptography, and AI that are practically impossible for classical computers.

 

Companies like IBM, Google, and start-ups like Rigetti and IonQ are aggressively pursuing quantum processors with growing qubit counts and decreasing error rates. Meanwhile, quantum-classical hybrid systems are emerging as a bridge between current hardware and quantum futures.

 

India’s Semiconductor Aspirations and Global Momentum

 

India, too, is actively investing in the semiconductor ecosystem, with initiatives like the Semicon India Programme, the establishment of fab proposals, and research in quantum materials and spintronics. The global race to localize chip manufacturing and develop quantum capabilities is reshaping geopolitics and economic priorities.

 

A Legacy That Lives On

 

In 2006, as mentioned above, I had an opportunity to publish an article reflecting on Moore’s Law and its profound influence, whose link was shared. Today, two decades later, I remain in awe of how one man’s thought became a global technological doctrine. Moore’s Law is not just a law — it is a legacy, one that has empowered billions, connected continents, and continues to inspire.

 

As we enter a future defined by AI, quantum breakthroughs, and post-silicon paradigms, let us honour Gordon Moore — the visionary whose law continues to shape our digital destiny.