Moore’s Law

Related Concepts

Exhaustive Key Search; Exponential Time; Polynomial Time

Definition

Moore’s Law states that the amount of computing power available for a given cost will increase by a factor of two every 18 months to 2 years.

Background

Moore’s Law was articulated in 1965 by Gordon Moore of Intel [1].

Theory

The phenomenal rise in computing power over the past half century – which has driven the increasing need for cryptography and security as covered in this work – is due to an intense research and development effort that has produced an essentially exponential increase in the number of transistors than can fit on a chip, while maintaining a constant chip cost.

Roughly speaking, the amount of computing power available for a given cost has increased and continues to increase by a factor of 2 every 18 months to 2 years, a pattern called Moore’s Law after Gordon Moore of Intel, who first articulated this exponential model. More specifically, the amount of computing power P(t) available...