James Delahunty
23 Sep 2009 18:02
Intel has surprised some industry experts by showing off working 22-nanometer SRAM chips, proving that Moore's Law still has some fight left in it. Moore's Law, applied to chips, predicts a doubling of the number of transistors in chips roughly every 2 years.
Some industry experts admitted that they didn't believe that it was possible - considering that the new Intel chip contains three billion transistors in an area the size of a fingernail. Even with that, Intel said that there could be chips coming that push the physical limits even further.
"Moore's Law is not a law of physics, it's a law of human inventiveness," Intel president and chief executive Paul Otellini told BBC News. "There is nothing that says that humans can't continue to invent." The company is currently producing and selling chips based on 45nm technology, and will move to 32nm later in the year.
"We have at least four generations of what we are shipping today in development. That is as far out as we have ever been able to develop things," Otellini said. "Not everything is done but it gets harder for sure. It requires more invention and more money and it's our job to continue that pace."