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While many have recently predicted the imminent demise of Moore’s Law, we need to recognize that this actually has happened at 28nm. From this point on we will still be able to double the amount of transistors in a single device but not at lower cost. And, for most applications, the cost will actually go up.

Let’s go back to 1965 and Moore’s paper in "Electronics, Volume 38, Number 8, April 19, 1965 The future of integrated electronics". The following figure represented Dr. Moore’s observation with regard to three consecutive technology nodes. Quoting: ..."the cost advantage continues to increase as the technology evolves toward the production of larger and larger circuit functions on a single semiconductor substrate. For simple circuits, the cost per component is nearly inversely proportional to the number of components, the result of the equivalent piece of semiconductor in the equivalent package containing more components. But as components are added, decreased yields more than compensate for the increased complexity, tending to raise the cost per component. Thus there is a minimum cost at any given time in the evolution of the technology"

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