This question was answered in fulfillment of the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ), an AS Level qualification that involves undertaking a research project, writing an assessed report, and performing an examined presentation of the findings. Over the course of four months from July to October 2014, I researched the question “Will Moore’s Law hold true in the future?”, summarised my findings in a 5,000 word report, and delivered multiple presentations to assessors and the ~200 students in my cohort.
This project involved searching for relevant texts in university libraries, discussing ideas with teachers and academics in the field, meticulous planning, and collating ideas from a variety of sources.
Moore’s Law is a prediction that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (such as a CPU) would double every two years. What initially started out as a prediction eventually became a self-fulfilling prophecy as the semiconductor industry started using it as a target, and held true for almost 40 years.
“Computers are about one hundred million times more powerful for the same unit cost than they were a half century ago. If the automobile industry had made as much progress in the past fifty years, a car today would cost a hundredth of a cent and go faster than the speed of light.”
Ray Kurzweil, Age of Spiritual Machines, 1999
As transistors got smaller, more and more challenges appeared. This project explored these challenges, such as rising power densities, leakage currents, and quantum tunnelling. The different methods of addressing these challenges, such as new materials with a higher dielectric constant, new designs like the FinFET, and graphene nanotube structures were also evaluated.
This project received an A grade upon moderation.
For more information on the project, the full report is available to view below.