The Long Arm of Moore's Law: Microelectronics and American Science
2018; Oxford University Press; Volume: 105; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/jahist/jay433
ISSN1945-2314
Autores Tópico(s)International Science and Diplomacy
ResumoIn 1965 Intel cofounder Gordon Moore pointed out that the number of economically viable circuit components you can fit onto a silicon chip, as they continue to miniaturize, doubles every year, and this drove the computer business and related industries. Although the time span was altered to every two years in 1975, the adherence to Moore's Law by those in research and development continued. Now that cadence has started to slow, and in the present moment we could well be going through a paradigm shift away from Moore's Law, with many declaring it dead. Cyrus C. M. Mody wishes to clarify its impact and legacy. He uses this classic calculation to trace the evolving shifts from 1965 to the early 2010s in the roles and relationships of government, academia, and corporations in research and development in microelectronics—and, on a broader scale, as the title suggests, in science itself. It is that complexity of interconnections, the networks of cross-networks being created on institutional levels and how such permutations affected technological change, that this study seeks to reveal and explore. Across this period, Mody sees two important shifts, which he calls civilianization and economization. The former emphasizes moving away from funding dependency based on national security coming from the military and intelligence agencies, the latter toward a system where all funders (whether government, military, philanthropic, or corporate) demanded greater economic return on their investment.
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