Essential Electronic Design Automation (EDA)

Process Improvements

The diameter of IC wafers has increased from two inches to about 12 inches. This enables many more chips per wafer, with lower cost per chip.

The number of transistors per chip has doubled about every 18 months for decades. (Intel's Gordon Moore made this observation, referred to as Moore's Law, in 1965.)

Process technology improvement has reduced the cost per transistor and increased the complexity of the IC. Every year some industry pundit predicts that Moore's Law will end within five years. Both the technology improvements and the predictions of its imminent end have persisted for decades.