
Moore & Metcalf Laws for Software
Moore's Law
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Moore's law says chip density doubles every
18 months. This has accelerated in the 1990s, now doubling the horsepower
on your laptop each year. Over n years, the computing power on your desktop
increases by 2 to the n power.
Metcalf's Law
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Metcalf's law says that computer power increases
by the square of the number of nodes on the network. Nodes
on the Internet have doubled in 1995, 1996, and 1997, so the Internet
compounds Moore's law for a net compute power increase of 2 to the 3n power.
References
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Moore's
Law /morz law/ prov.The observation
that the logic density of silicon integrated circuits has closely followed
the curve (bits per square inch) = 2^((t - 1962)) where t is time in years;
that is, the amount of information storable on a given amount of silicon
has roughly doubled every year since the technology was invented.
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George Gilder. Metcalf's
Law and Legacy. Forbes ASAP, 13 Sep 93.


© Jeff Sutherland 1995-98