Tech Talk / By Martha Knight

Who is Moore, and how did he get to pass a law about transistor density, and is that law still in effect or has it been repealed?

That would be Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel. In 1965 he observed that historically, the number of integrated circuits that can be placed on silicon doubles every two years. Or, maybe, every 18 months. Moore’s Law.

The law is still in effect, in that the semiconductor industry bases its plans and its R&D on it, and related industries involved in hardware and communications and device design plan and market accordingly.

Might it be supplanted, much as it seems to have countermanded Murphy’s law? There are some indications that it might.

Two years OR 18 months? Apparently an early version of Moore’s statement said the doubling would be every 18 months. Later he rethought this and reissued the statement with the interval given as two years, but he denied that this represented a rethinking or recalculation on his part.

Well, hey, the Ten Commandments weren’t presented in exactly the same order and way in the different places they are set forth in scripture, right? They weren’t exactly numbered, were they? But we can conform to the precepts (or fail to), regardless of those details. And if some of us hold that there now are two, according to Jesus, we soon discover all the others are incorporated in those. Maybe Moore factored in grace?

As chips get smaller it becomes more difficult to keep to the pace set by Moore’s Law. William Holt, general manager of Intel’s Technology Manufacturing Group, acknowledges this.

So much flows from Moore’s Law and its continuing effects. Obviously processing speed is affected. Then there are memory, storage, the size and number of pixels in digital cameras and displays. Enhancements in those areas occur at exponential rates.

The impacts on the world economy are many and massive. Social effects are just as plentiful.

Of course, Moore’s law is not a natural physical law, like Newton’s laws of motion and such. It is a conjecture, in which what Moore (and others) had observed is projected into the future, and presumed to be a trend well enough established to use as a basis for predictions.

Some experts in the relevant fields opined in 2005 that Moore’s Law trends could hold true until 2020. But in 2010 the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors predicted that growth would slow by the end of 2013. Say, that’s about six weeks! Congress can’t even adopt an annual budget that soon.

ITRS says transistor counts will double only every three years.

In the industry, it is supposed that there is a limit to miniaturization, or circuit packing. There are challenges in scaling. At some point, things can get too small to work.

Holt points out, “Each time now you go through a new generation, you have to do something or add something to enable that scaling or that improvement to go on.”

Intel changed to 3D transistor structure on the 22-nanometer process, with the latest chips having transistors stacked atop each other rather than nestled side by side.

Intel no longer makes chips just for itself, but now uses its fabulous fab to make chips for Tabula, Netronome, Altera and Achronix.

Intel  hopes its power-efficient Atom chips will be used in upcoming generations of smart phones and tablets. Next year we can expect 14-nanometer process to bring forth faster, smaller, more efficient chips. Intel wants to challenge ARM, which dominates the smartphone and tablet markets now.

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Some technologies that have been around for centuries have been in the news lately, in relation to music and health.

How do we make music? We sing; we play instruments. Many instruments are played by being blown into by human beings. These would be the woodwind and brass instruments, and those marginally respectable hybrids, saxophones.

Ooh! How unsanitary! We exhale germs, right? And those must go into the instruments we play. Maybe some go right on through! But then, some don’t.

There is moisture in our exhalations—droplets, such as those that escape when we cough or sneeze into our elbows, in the currently approved fashion.

Now there is a disorder, or a group of them, classified as Saxophone Lung. The idea is that some of the moisture we exhale accumulates inside the instruments that we blow into, and this provides an environment where mold can grow. Also, bacteria exhaled into instruments can multiply and establish thriving colonies.

But aren’t we supposed to blow or EXhale into instruments, not INhale through them? So I would think. But the Mayo Clinic has reported on a case study in which a man with some puzzling and persistent symptoms finally was found to be suffering from illness caused by the fungus Exophiala. And the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology has discovered that Saxophone Lung is a type of hypersensitivity pneumonitis.

An environmental Health Research study found bacteria, yeast and mold in 20 different woodwind instruments.

What can we do, stop playing saxes and clarinets? Are double reeds twice as bad? Are we at risk of getting ear fungus just from listening to those germy instruments?

But before utter panic sets in, might we consider such practical measures as cleaning instruments with the kits made for that purpose, and making sure to clean mouthpieces and reeds between uses, and refraining from sharing mouthpieces among musicians or between teachers and pupils? Instrumental hygiene, if you will. Or is that too obvious a solution?