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Managing the impact of Moore’s Law

An Oracle Components Industry Commentary

Moore’s Law profoundly affects the world we live in because it describes the exponential growth of semiconductor device complexity historically and into the future. This growth has driven the proliferation in sophisticated electronics surrounding us – but it can create problems for buyers supporting mature production or maintenance operations. This article looks at the impact of Moore’s Law, and the vital role of independent distribution in managing its effects.

In the early 40s, IBM's president, Thomas J Watson, reputedly said: "I think there is a world market for about five computers." In fact, a recent Gartner report revealed that the world population of PCs passed 1 billion in 2008 – and is set to reach 2 billion by 2014. And, whereas mature markets accounted for just under 60 percent of the first billion installed PCs, Gartner expects emerging markets to account for approximately 70 percent of the next billion.

The Watson quote is extreme and perhaps anecdotal, but it highlights how computers have evolved beyond anyone’s imagination. In Watson’s day, and for many decades to follow, a computer was a large installation in a rarefied laboratory environment that needed tending by men in white coats to remain operational. In the world reported by Gartner, it has become a small, cheap ubiquitous device that directly affects the lives of nearly the entire world’s population.

And computers are just one part of the electronics story. We all know how profoundly our lives have been changed by evolution in phones and other familiar devices, as well as the appearance of entirely new applications within communications, medicine, surveillance and many other areas.

But what has taken electronics from a laboratory curiosity to the pervasive force that it has become? Underlying this electronics revolution is an apparently simple principle first suggested by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, in 1965 and now known as Moore’s Law. In its original form, he proposed that the number of transistors that could be integrated onto a silicon device with maximum economy would double every year. The time scale was later amended to two years, and historically the growth in device complexity didn’t exactly meet this curve. However, Moore’s Law clearly demonstrates that for more than forty five years, and for unknown time to come, the rate of growth in device complexity has been exponential. In 1971 the 4004, Intel’s first 4-bit microprocessor had just over 2000 transistors. Now (Q4 2009) Intel has announced the Itanium Tukwila quad core device with a count of 2 billion transistors – a million fold increase.

This proliferation in transistor density leads to devices that are ever faster and more functional, yet at a lower cost. And the principle applies as much to other ICs as it does to microprocessors. So these advantages of increased speed and functionality coupled with reduced size and cost translate quickly into the revolutionary computing and communications devices that pervade our lives today. And this trend is set to continue, with research applications already under way that might seem like the stuff of science fiction. In Brown University, USA, Matthew Nagle, a 26-year-old quadriplegic, was hooked up to a computer via an implant smaller than an aspirin that sits on top of his brain and reads electrical patterns. Using that technology, he learned how to move a cursor around a screen, play simple games, control a robotic arm, and even turn his brain into a TV remote control. And IBM, in partnership with five universities and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is working on a project named ‘Blue Matter’. This simulates a brain with 1 billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses--about the equivalent of a cat's cortex, or 4.5% of a human brain. This brain like architecture could help computers towards the goal of achieving tasks that come naturally to humans yet still lie beyond conventional computers today. Such skills include correlation of relevant facts from huge amounts of unrelated data to focus on vital elements for decision making. Applications of such large scale power could include analysis of the world’s water or financial systems, or traffic analysis.

All of these examples highlight two key facts. Firstly, Moore’s Law, driven by competitive pressure, has produced a consistent flow of ever faster, more functional and lower cost silicon for the last 45 years and hasn’t stopped yet. Secondly, as long as smarter silicon continues to appear, there will always be innovative designers ready to exploit the new opportunities it creates.

But the market’s continued growth and prosperity depends on more than just the semi manufacturers’ efforts. For example its natural volatility makes special demands on distributors, who must match the manufacturers’ speed and flexibility with their own. They must equate the manufacturers’ priorities with those of buyers responsible for supporting military and commercial production and maintenance operations. Their need is to populate volumes of design stabilised PCBs, or to provide replacement parts for field failures in ageing equipment. And as the new parts appear, the parts actually needed can go onto extended lead time, onto allocation, or even disappear entirely from franchised channels.

Although there are predictions on the death of Moore’s Law, the reality is that this situation isn’t going to change any time soon. This is why independent distributors such as Oracle Components ( www.OracleComponents.co.uk ) play such a vital role in supporting production and maintenance organisation buyers, not only in emergencies but on an ongoing, day-to-day basis. It’s not easy to predict which components will create sourcing problems and, especially in maintenance environments, it’s not always possible to even predict which components will be needed. And as products from aircraft to mobile phones become more complex, simply tracking all the possible suppliers invoked by the products’ parts lists can become impossible for some organisations.

Oracle has a structured approach that protects parts users from these issues. When buyers need a response, they need it rapidly. And when a solution has been found, they want assurance that the flow of correctly specified, qualified and priced parts will continue for the duration of their requirement. Part of Oracle’s solution lies in their carefully assembled, extraordinarily large database of over 5000 suppliers. With this supplier database and their expertise in using it, Oracle can mostly find the parts that their customers can’t, and expedite them fast. Buyers can benefit from this database immediately by using Oracle’s online parts search toolbar. Typing in any part number, from 4004 to Xeon will call up a list of variants, their manufacturers and date codes, as available. Buyers can choose from the listings they see and request an RFQ with target pricing. The supplier database size ensures maximum availability and best pricing.

Oracle will acknowledge any RFQ request made during office hours within 5 minutes of receipt. From this point on, they implement a step by step strategy to ensure that fast response and timely deliveries remain above customers’ expectations until the end of the project. Operating throughout Europe, North America and other key regions, Oracle is well financed and can organise local funding to rapidly expedite goods from the appropriate supplier. Oracle itself is ISO9001:2000 certified, and it carefully screens its suppliers to ensure that the quality of their parts as well as their availability is as it should be.

After the initial delivery, support for the buyer’s ongoing schedule remains consistent. Oracle has nurtured a friendly office culture that has paid off in terms of low staff turnover, so customers enjoy access to the same account manager for the duration of their requirement. And Oracle is happy to buy forward and hold stock of components for delivery to the buyer’s schedule, eliminating concerns about availability or pricing. This becomes more of an ‘order and forget’ operation for the buyers as Oracle can also consolidate any number of components from widely distributed suppliers into single shipments to where they are needed.

This long term relationship offers further benefits for customers who originally came to Oracle to solve an immediate sourcing problem. The availability of the online Toolbar and access to their Account Manager makes it easy to prove how effective Oracle can be in providing an ongoing and consistent service as well as in solving emergency sourcing issues. It see the servcie action simply check stock here http://www.oraclecomponents.co.uk/partsearch/index.php? and initiate a parts enquiry