In 1965, a young engineer named Gordon Moore made an observation that would shape the next 60 years of human civilization. He noticed that the number of transistors that could fit on a chip was doubling approximately every year. He later revised this to every two years. The industry named it Moore's Law.
To understand how extraordinary this is, look at the numbers. In 1971, Intel's first processor (the 4004) had 2,300 transistors. By 1993, the Pentium had 3.1 million. By 2010, the Core i7 had 1.17 billion. By 2020, Apple's M1 had 16 billion. And by 2025, NVIDIA's GB202 GPU packs 92.2 billion transistors. That is a 40-million-fold increase in 54 years.
Hover a chip to see its transistor count.
Why It Mattered So Much
Moore's Law wasn't just an observation — it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The entire semiconductor industry planned their research, investments, and product roadmaps around it. Companies spent billions to MAKE sure the doubling continued because falling behind meant losing market share. This coordinated effort produced the most consistent technological advancement in human history.
The results are everywhere. The smartphone in your pocket has more computing power than the supercomputers that filled entire rooms in the 1990s. Video streaming, GPS navigation, voice assistants, artificial intelligence, electric vehicles — none of these would exist without six decades of Moore's Law driving transistor counts up and costs down.
The First Signs of Trouble
But exponential growth can't last forever in the physical world. Around 2010, the pace started slipping. Intel's CEO admitted in 2015 that their doubling cadence had stretched to two and a half years. In 2016, the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors — the industry's official planning body — produced its final roadmap and stopped centering plans around Moore's Law. The physics were catching up.
In the next lesson, you'll learn exactly why Moore's Law is slowing — the five physical barriers that silicon transistors are hitting as they approach atomic scale.
- In 1965, Gordon Moore observed that transistor count on a chip doubles roughly every 2 years.
- Not a law of physics — a self-fulfilling prophecy the industry spent billions to keep alive.
- From 2,300 transistors (Intel 4004, 1971) to 92.2 billion (NVIDIA GB202, 2025) — a 40-million-fold jump.
- The pace started slipping around 2010; the ITRS roadmap stopped centering on Moore's Law in 2016.
- Physics is catching up — and the next lesson covers exactly which barriers are breaking it.