Slowdown or Stallout? Nvidia vs. Intel: What’s Really Happening to Moore’s Law
Gordon Moore, a semiconductor industry pioneer and co-founder of Intel, postulated in 1965 that the number of transistors on a chip would double every year for the next decade. Later, Moore revised this prediction, extending the period to every two years. Carver Mead, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, encapsulated this concept as a fundamental principle of the semiconductor industry, coining it “Moore’s Law,” which has since become widely recognized and cited.
In recent years, as the pace of semiconductor process technology updates has decelerated and the cost of advanced processes has substantially increased, many believe that the traditional interpretation of Moore’s Law no longer holds. For instance, Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, publicly expressed this view last year. However, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, in a recent public event, stated that Moore’s Law still plays a role, albeit admitting that the cycle has slowed to three years, meaning it significantly lags behind its original rate.
Image: PGelsinger
Since assuming the role of CEO at Intel, Gelsinger has consistently emphasized the continued relevance of Moore’s Law. He introduced the concept of “Super Moore’s Law,” suggesting that the number of transistors can be increased through innovative technologies like small chip design and 2.5/3D packaging. Intel refers to this strategy as “Moore’s Law 2.0.” Similarly, AMD, Intel’s longtime competitor, believes that Moore’s Law is not extinct in the short term.
Gelsinger acknowledges that we are no longer in the golden age of Moore’s Law. Achieving advancements is considerably more challenging than in the past, hence the observable slowdown. His stance marks a significant shift from previous assertions, at least acknowledging that Moore’s Law is unraveling economically. The manufacturing costs of modern semiconductor fabrication plants are considerably higher than before, representing a substantial departure from the past.
