Evolutionary Model of Moore’s Law

Moore suggested an exponential growth of the number of transistors in integrated electronic circuits. In this paper, Moore’s law is derived from a preferential growth model of successive production technology generations. The theory suggests that products manufactured with a new production technology generating lower costs per unit have a competitive advantage on the market. Therefore, previous technology generations are replaced according to a Fisher-Pry law. Discussed is the case that a production technology is governed by a cost relevant characteristic. If this characteristic is bounded by a technological or physical boundary, the presented evolutionary model predicts an asymptotic approach to this limit. The model discusses the wafer size evolution and the long term evolution of Moore’s law for the case of a physical boundary of the lithographic production technology. It predicts that the miniaturization process of electronic devices will slow down considerably in the next two decades.