Flexible Automation and Integrated Manufacturing 1998

ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-118-1

THE ROLE OF AUTOMATION IN TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT CYCLE-TIME REDUCTION

DOI: 10.1615/FAIM1998.360
pages 401-406

Abstrakt

In 1965, Intel's Gordon Moore first observed the "doubling of transistor density on a manufactured die every year". The press called this "Moore's Law", and the name stuck. Today, silicon technology development results in a doubling transistor count on an 18 month cycle time (Figure 1 shows the rate of growth for Intel microprocessors). The economic result of this relentless pursuit of Moore's Law, and the potential benefit of decreasing this cycle time still further, is staggering: the average price of a transistor has fallen by six orders of magnitude due to silicon technology development. This is unprecedented in world history; no other manufactured item has decreased in cost so far, so fast.