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An IC introduced in 1993 contained 200,000 transistors. The company's current IC

contains 10 billion transistors. Is the company's integration ahead or behind Moore's Law?

User Razakj
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Final answer:

The company's IC with 10 billion transistors is ahead of Moore's Law, which predicts a doubling of transistors approximately every two years. From 200,000 transistors in 1993, the expected number by 2023 would be about 6.55 billion, not 10 billion.

Step-by-step explanation:

The question asks whether the company's current level of integration, with an integrated circuit (IC) containing 10 billion transistors, is ahead or behind Moore's Law. Moore's Law is the observation made by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, that the number of transistors on an IC doubles approximately every two years. Given that the company had an IC with 200,000 transistors in 1993, we would expect that the number of transistors today should be double that amount approximately every two years to follow Moore's Law.

Doing the math, starting with 200,000 transistors in 1993 and doubling that number every two years, we would expect approximately 200,000 × 215 (since 2023 is 30 years after 1993, and 30 divided by 2 is 15) which is about 6.55 billion transistors by 2023. The company's current count of 10 billion transistors exceeds this projected amount, indicating that their integration is indeed ahead of Moore's Law.

The development of the IC has allowed for significant advancements in computing power, with engineers playing a pivotal role. Integrated circuit technology has evolved, contributing to faster computation, lower power consumption, and smaller sizes for computing devices. This has been made possible by the continuous scaling down of transistor sizes and the innovation in semiconductor technology.

User Bon Macalindong
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