This press release is copyrighted by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE). Its use is granted only to journalists and news media. Embargo date: 26 March 2002, 5:00 p.m. ET.
Throughout most of its history, the microprocessor business has followed a consistent pattern. Companies such as Intel, Motorola, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Hewlett-Packard spend billions of dollars each year and compete intensely to produce the most powerful processors, handling data in 32- or 64-bit increments. The astounding complexity and density of transistors on these integrated circuits (ICs)--now surpassing 200 million transistors on a 1-cm2 die--confer great technical prestige on these companies. The ICs are used in PCs, workstations, and other sophisticated systems that for the most part have been lucrative, high-volume markets.
As with other ICs, microprocessors have for the past few decades been undergoing the exponential rise in performance prophesied by Moore's Law. In coming years, however, this seemingly unshakable industry paradigm will change fundamentally. What will happen is that the performance of middle- and lower-range microprocessors will increasingly be sufficient for growing--and lucrative--categories of applications. Thus microprocessor makers that concentrate single-mindedly on keeping up with Moore's Law will risk losing market share in these fast-growing segments of their markets.
Michael J. Bass of Hewlett-Packard and Clayton M. Christensen of the Harvard Business School, writing in the April issue of IEEE Spectrum, believe these changes portend serious upheaval for microprocessor design, fabrication, and equipment-manufacturing firms, which have been laser-locked on Moore's Law. Executives lose sleep over whether they can keep on shrinking the line widths and transistors and fabricating larger wafers. The top IC fabricators will have little choice but to invest ever more heavily so as to keep on the Moore trajectory; however, the authors do not see these investments as sufficient for future success.
Contact: Glenn Zorpette, 212 419 7580, [email protected].For a faxed copy of the complete article ("The Future of the Microprocessor Business" by Michael J. Bass, Hewlett-Packard Co., and Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business School, IEEE Spectrum, April 2002, pp. 34-39) or to arrange an interview, contact: Nancy T. Hantman, 212 419 7561, [email protected].
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