Moore's Law strikes again

[tw]

Moore's Law was never under threat due to memory density. Too many possible technologies exist, all very promising, that would make memories so much smaller. Many 'under development' technologies are quantum dots, polymer ferroelectrics, nanowire, magnetic RAM, and Ovonic Unified (phase change) Memory. The last was originally demonstrated in the 1950s. The current programming speeds may be on the order of 30 nanoseconds.

Meanwhile, quantum mechanics says disk drives can get much smaller. In fact, the limiting factor on disk drive size has been more about profits than technology limits. Disk drives still have that much more capacity in the technology. The first optical memory storage device is expected soon from IBM and others. Memory storage is not a limiting factor to Moore's law.

Threat to Moore's Law is that transistors are now down to a three atom thickness in some places with no proven technology to solve this dimensional and thermal (electron leakage) problem. The latest solution - Hi K dielectrics - has not been working out so well. Transistors are now generating too much heat and therefore cannot increase too much more in speed. That is the 'brick wall' that threatens Moore's Law.