Computing History Displays: Computer History Time Line - Computers and Technology

With computing, smaller has always been better. All technologies benefit from miniaturization because the smaller a device is, the cheaper and less resource-hungry are its manufacture and operation. With electronic devices there is an additional benefit: because smaller quantities of electrical charge need to be moved smaller distances, circuits get faster.

The first 20 years of computing saw electronic switch size drop from large valves to tiny transistors. Since the 1960s, electronic components have been made from integrated circuits "etched" onto the surface of silicon using techniques similar to lithography. The smallest components in such circuits are limited by the wavelength of the "light" that is used to project the circuit's image. Since 1970 circuits have shrunk by a factor of more than a million. This progress is defined by "Moore's Law" named for Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel Corporation, which states that the size of circuits halves - and thus their capacity doubles - every 18 months.

Smaller also means cheaper: computer circuits have declined in price by a factor of more than 10 million since 1960, progress illustrated most strikingly by the increasing density of computer memory chips. Meanwhile the underlying circuit speed of computers has increased - less dramatically - by a factor of merely 10,000.

There is no doubt that this underlying progress in technology has been the major factor in the growth of computers and their ubiquitous applications. To give special attention to technology change we have introduced dated timeline markers to record technology progress We have noted every factor of 10 increase in basic circuit speed and, as an indication of circuit density, every quadrupling of memory chip size.