[IDF] Intel Legend Gordon Moore: And what is your law?

Intel co-founder Moore seemed a little reserved at the beginning of his appearance at this year’s IDF, but thawed visibly during the course of his talk, thrilled by his surroundings. The 78-year-old is ranked among the living legends in the semiconductor industry. Together with Hungarian-born András István Gróf (better known today as Andy Grove) and the American Robert Noyce, Moore founded Intel in 1968. In 1965, he formulated the “law” that his since been named for him, which states that the number of transistors doubles approximately every 18 months. This law has held for the last 42 years and will continue to apply at least into the 32-nanometer generation of CPUs. From a purely theoretical perspective, there is no limitation to its continued validity. The talk’s moderator asked Moore about the validity of the law he had formulated. Instead of giving a direct answer, he answered humorously “And what is your law ?”
Asked what other industry could experience the same kind of fast growth as semiconductors in his opinion, Moore pointed at the biotech sector, where he expects major breakthroughs in the coming years. In fact, he recommended that young people trying to decide on a field of study consider biology and man-machine interfaces. When he was asked about the biggest surprise of his life, he answered that he could have never imagined that 300-millimeter (12-inch) wafers would ever be produced.
Moore sees the greatest challenge in the development of a real interface between users and their computers. After all, the familiar keyboard is less than optimal, in his opinion. Perfecting voice-command software or simultaneous translation applications could be a step in the right direction, said Moore.

The audience, consisting predominantly of Intel-selected attendees, followed his talk with rapt attention and great enthusiasm. No other speaker received more applause that day.