Hi,

I always wondered why the pace at which computers become stronger is set the way it is. I know Moore's law predicted the development quite accurately but I cannot figure out why. Were we, for example, really unable to build a 8GB Graphic card with normal size back in 2008? And concerning Moore's law, why does the number of transistors double every 2 years (roughly), it seems like it's always been the same "ingredients" but due to some mythical convention the speed at which computers improve has obey to these "laws". My conspiracy hat tells me it is due to capitalist motivations but seriously, it seems strange that on the one hand the speed is somewhat steady and on the other hand it never ends (or will it?)

You should do some research on how chips are created so you have a better understanding of what goes into their creation.

You received some excellent advice from kerowo. In addition I would add familiarize yourself with a basic understanding of solid state physics which of course is part of creating ICs. Also you may start to understand why micro processor speeds have maxed out for probably a good long while. Your conspiracy musings are laughable. There isn't much doubt that capitalism has been the reason for the advancement not its hindrance.

You're actually not that wrong, but it's not really a conspiracy. The number one concern for the semiconductor industry is yield, i.e. get as much dies (basically chips) out of a wafer as possible. That's by no means a secret, but you don't read about it at TMZ.

For a high yield, the dies have too be as small as possible, as it reduces the likelihood for them to be ruined by dust particles during production (roughly speaking). At the same time, you need lots of transistors to provide the features you need to survive in the market. So you need to shrink the feature size (which until recently also allowed you to clock the chip at higher speeds). It's a continuous struggle of economically viable production versus market acceptance.

right now its at about 3 years...improvement in production process is the biggest factor when it comes to chip packaging, the better the process the more IOs you can fit and the more flexible your design rules can be

I had recently a similar thread on programming forum and one ineresting development is improving the way more processors can access the memory pool and soon there hopefully being 100+ TB memory available For several processors. Just one development if Hpe prototype will work one day.

Intel is very dominant on high end market but hoping AMD get their act together and someone like ARM would join the competition as well.