Published By: The New York Times, 10/30/2016

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Summary

As engineering progress slows, scientists try to find creative solutions to provide cheaper and faster computer chips. Researchers are attempting to create computer chips that use less power, via various algorithms, and reinvest that saved power into faster or more powerful computing abilities.

Extended Discussion Questions

• How might the end of Moore’s Law affect new products or computers that you use from day to day? Think about devices you use for school, for work, and for entertainment.
• The article mentions climate-change modeling as one application that requires massive amounts of processing power. Can you think of other examples of applications with great potential benefits but high processing requirements?
• The researchers who programmed a Raspberry Pi to automatically recognize objects in images said this could be beneficial for privacy because the data don’t have to be sent over the Internet. Why would this be a concern?

Related Article

“Moore’s Law Running out of Room, Tech Looks for Successor”
Published By: The New York Times, 05/04/2016 || View the Article
More in-depth discussion of Moore’s Law.

Relating This Story to the CSP Curriculum Framework

Global Impact Learning Objectives:

• LO 7.2.1 Explain how computing has impacted innovations in other fields.
• LO 7.4.1 Explain the connections between computing and real-world contexts, including economic, social, and cultural contexts.

Global Impact Essential Knowledge:

• EK 7.2.1F Moore’s law has encouraged industries that use computers to effectively plan future research and development based on anticipated increases in computing power.

Other CSP Big Ideas:

• Idea 4 Algorithms

Related Post

“Computer Scientists Find ‘Inexact Computing’ Can Improve Answers” covers how inexact computing offers potential solutions to the slowdown of growth in processing speed.

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