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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeff Hayden who wrote (8039)	8/16/2000 9:54:12 PM
From: Rob Preuss	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Jeff, Moore's Law relates to the information processing capacity of a chip. This capacity is proportional to the number of transistors on the chip as well as to the speed of the chip. If the total area of the chip is held constant, then the number of transistors on the chip is inversely proportional to the area of a transistor. Thus, I think Moore's Law has two components: 1. The rate at which the transistor area decreases. 2. The rate at which the switching speed increases. For example, if the transistor area drops in half every 36 months and the speed doubles every 36 months you get a 4x information processing improvement every 36 months or, equivalently, a doubling every 18 months. I'm told that the real numbers these days are closer to a halving of the transistor area every 24 months and a doubling of the speed every 24 months... thus one gets a doubling of the information processing performance every 12 months. Anyway, I don't think the speed component applies to your pixel argument... only the area component. Thus one would expect to see a doubling of the resolution (with no change in chip size or cost) every 36 months (or 24 months, depending on who you choose to believe). So I agree with the general gist of your argument, but I'd refine it just a little bit by omitting the speed component of Moore's Law. Cheers, Rob