A memorial tribute to the pioneering work of Dr. Gordon Moore, iconic visionary of the semiconductor industry, who died on March 24, 2023. 

The song "Moore's Law" was released in 2005 to mark the 40th Anniversary of Intel co-founder Moore's 1965 observation that ongoing advances in miniaturization ("shrinks") allowed the maximum number of transistors on a chip to double each year. He also predicted that the trend would continue. 

As the song says, "the pace of the doubling changed over time," but the basic principle described by Moore has held to this day, with transistor counts growing from a few hundred in the mid-1960s to over 100 billion today. That trend became known as Moore's Law, and is a tenet of the electronics industry and high technology in general. It's referenced in thousands of articles and presentations each year, and at least one song.

Rest in processing power, Dr. Moore.

Pete Dunn's Silicon Songs

I began writing Silicon Songs in 1989, when I was a newspaper reporter covering the global semiconductor manufacturing community. Between then and 2006, I wrote about a dozen tunes exploring the culture, science, and impact of chip fabrication - the astounding process that puts those billions of transistors on a fingernail-sized sliver of silicon. Distributed first on cassettes, and later CDs, they became a tradition at the annual Semicon West trade show, and were shared at wafer fabs and equipment companies across Asia, Europe, and North America.

Listen to "Gigabit DRAM," the 1998 Silicon Song, here:  https://soundcloud.com/pete-dunn-recording/pete-dunn-gigabit-dram

Moore's Law
©2005 by Peter Dunn, Orktunes International (BMI)
All Rights Reserved

Meet Dr. Gordon Moore, one of the famous Traitorous Eight
They started Intel - but before that, Moore wrote a paper
About the increasing number of transistors on chips
One transistor (shrunk) turned into two
Two transistors (shrunk) turned into four
Eight, 16, 32, 64 - it's going to keep going
Said Gordon Moore
That's Moore's Law

The pace of the doubling changed over time
First every year, then every two
But 40 years after that prescient paper
We're still on the course seen by Dr. G. Moore
One billion transistors (shrunk) turn into two
Two billion transistors (shrunk) turn into four
Eight, 16, 32, 64 - it's going to keep going
Said Gordon Moore
That's Moore's Law

The big question is - how long can this go on?

Transistors get faster as they get smaller
Each minuscule one gets cheaper to make
There's twice as much power just 'round the corner
That's why your PC is obsolete its first day
If you understand shrinks, you'll understand high tech
Someday it'll stop but until then we say
Eight, 16, 32, 64 - that's the story of the law ascribed to
Gordon Moore

Single

Pete Dunn - Moore's Law

The song that asks (and answers) the question, "How big is a gigabit?" Called "infectious and spooky; a techno cantata," by noted music writer Sally Cragin in The Noise magazine. Released in 1998 to celebrate the development of the first memory chips capable of storing over a billion bits of data; since then technological progress has pushed top capacities to 24 gigabits.

Pete Dunn's Silicon Songs

I began writing Silicon Songs in 1989, when I was a newspaper reporter covering the global semiconductor manufacturing community. Between then and 2006, I wrote about a dozen tunes exploring the culture, science, and impact of chip fabrication - the astounding process that puts those billions of transistors on a fingernail-sized sliver of silicon. Distributed first on cassettes, and later CDs, they became a tradition at the annual Semicon West trade show, and were shared at wafer fabs and equipment companies across Asia, Europe, and North America.

Listen to "Moore's Law," the 2005 Silicon Song, here: https://soundcloud.com/pete-dunn-recording/moores-law/s-Fw3yunTsx3k

Pete Dunn - Gigabit DRAM

I offer a range of mobile audio recording services, for orchestras, chorales, and soloists. 

Pete Dunn Recording