Chips Aren’t Getting Much Smaller, and That Stinks for Intel

In May, at a San Francisco talk to mark the 50th anniversary of Moore’s Law, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore said he was surprised chipmakers have kept it going for so long. Two months later, Intel Chief Executive Officer Brian Krzanich said on an earnings call that the pace is indeed slowing—doubling chip density now takes closer to two and a half years, rather than two.

That trend has huge consequences for the $300 billion semiconductor industry, as the process that’s regularly delivered exponentially better computing power for less money may be approaching its limits. Some of the layers of microscopic circuits etched into materials on disks of silicon measure just a few atoms across, so thin that their conductive properties would break down if they got any thinner. Many circuit lines are narrower than the wavelengths of light used to create them. “At some point the equipment, the technology it takes to make the wafer, gets more expensive,” says Dan Hutcheson, head of VLSI Research. “That’s when Moore’s Law fails.”