Moore's Law 'will break down in 2014'

Moore's Law of miniaturisation, which has shaped the computing industry for three decades, will break down by 2014, according to market analysts iSuppli.

Intel co-founder Gordon Moore predicted that transistor densities on processors, roughly equivalent to computing power, would double every two years.

Clearly this cannot continue indefinitely but Intel has usually in terms of the crunch coming in a decade or so, and that it will be caused by physical constraints such as the difficulty in maintaining insulation in layers only a few atoms thick.

But the law has a hidden economic layer: each new scale of miniaturisation needs massive investment in new manufacturing plants. And that means potential sales need to cover the investment.

Len Jelinek, director and chief semiconductor manufacturing analyst at iSuppli, says the cost of manufacturing equipment to implement sub-20nm scale chips will be prohibitive. “At [18nm] the industry will start getting to the point where … costs will be so high, that the value of their lifetime productivity can never justify it.”

Scales can be reduced even further but the rate of processor development will no longer be driven by Moore's Law, Jelinek said.