Moore's article was a response to a request for an opinion piece on what might happen to ICs in the following decade for an anniversary issue of the magazine.
A decade later, with the industry still following the prediction closely, Carver Mead, a professor at Caltech, dubbed the observation Moore's Law.
Although the industry hasn't adhered to Moore's Law exactly since then, it still uses the concept as its engine of progress - not bad for a prediction that started from a device which integrated 30 components.
Commenting at the 40th anniversary of the article - written three years before he formed Intel with Bob Noyce and Andy Grove, Moore noted: "The most complex IC we had then had just 30 components. And we had one with 60 components that would be introduced in the next year."
Here's an interesting contrast. The 4004 microprocessor, launched by Intel in 1971, contained 2300 transistors. Today, the 5th Generation Intel Core processor features 1.3billion. And, according to Intel, more than 6million of its latest Tri-Gate transistors can fit on a full stop.
The question now is how long Moore's Law can continue to be applied by the industry as silicon begins to encounter the laws of physics.
