1965年，Intel公司的共同創(chuàng)始人——Godon Moore先生根據(jù)1961年第一塊集成電路(IC)發(fā)明之后的5年內(nèi)，IC中晶體管數(shù)目增加的事實(shí)，發(fā)現(xiàn)了晶體管的數(shù)目每隔兩年就翻一番，芯片的集成度每十八個(gè)月就翻一番的規(guī)律。這種發(fā)展速率被公認(rèn)為定律——摩爾定律，并成為指導(dǎo)半導(dǎo)體行業(yè)和半導(dǎo)體集成電路發(fā)展的指路明燈。

在科學(xué)技術(shù)不斷發(fā)展的背景下，摩爾定律得到了驗(yàn)證和支持。不過(guò)，摩爾定律也一直隨時(shí)間的推移而不斷完善，Moore先生在隨后也對(duì)相關(guān)術(shù)語(yǔ)進(jìn)行了擴(kuò)充。為了讓摩爾定律能夠繼續(xù)下去，人們已經(jīng)研究和分析了摩爾定律繼續(xù)下去的困難，以及可以克服的原因。

The original Moore's Law, first uttered in 1965 by semiconductor engineer Gordon Moore (who co-founded Intel four years later), spoke of the number of components on the lowest-cost silicon integrated circuits — but Moore's own formulation varied somewhat over the years, and reconstructing the meaning of the terminology he used in the original turns out to be fraught with difficulties. Further variants were spawned by Intel's PR department and various journalists.

It has been shown that none of the variants of Moore's Law actually fit the data very well (the price curves within DRAM generations perhaps come closest).

Nevertheless, Moore's Law is constantly invoked to set up expectations about the next generation of computing technology. See also Parkinson's Law of Data and Gates's Law.