According to Moore’s Law, the number of transistor chips per square inch on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years. This law evolved from a statement released by Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore in 1965 when he observed that the number of components on integrated circuits doubled every year at that time. He also predicted that the trend would continue for the next decade, which has proven true to this day, with a slight change in the time interval.
This trend in computer hardware is very important because it indicates just how rapid improvements are in the capability of all electronic devices. An actual plot of the increase in number of transistor chips per square inch for central processing units (CPUs) actually show an exponential growth, which definitely can be felt in how much changes there have been in the capability of a computer since 1965 up to now. Even comparing processing speeds year on year there are already significant changes, which allows computer hardware manufacturers to make newer units smaller and faster and each time. Other advancements in technology that we can peg to Moore’s Law include bigger memory capacities and higher image resolutions.
When it comes to cost this means that more and more hi-tech gadgets are available at affordable prices to consumers. For manufacturers though it means spending more on research in order to keep the pace up while keeping the overall cost down for the consumers that have come to expect rapid upgrades and updates for a minimal cost.
