Harnessing Moore's Law


Mark D. Hill

Computer Sciences Department
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
University of Wisconsin-Madison
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~markhill


For most products, the claim "better and cheaper" casts suspicion on the
salesperson. For computer-related products, however, "better and cheaper"
has been wildly true for decades. In fact, computers have been getting
better and cheaper so effectively that the speed at which tomorrow's
offerings surpass today's purchase disturbs some customers.

In this talk, I seek to explain this success so as to give listeners
a foundation with which to appreciate what the future might hold.
Specifically, I explain how rapid technological progress (e.g., the
technologist's Moore's Law) has been harnessed to enable better and
cheaper computers (the popular media's Moore's Law). I then touch upon
future prospects for technological progress, computer implementation
challenges, and potential impacts.

My primary audience is computer science undergraduates. Secondarily, I try
to reach out to people familiar with using computers, even if they have
never written software or designed hardware.  This talk is based, in part,
on an essay I wrote as part of a National Academy of Sciences study panel.