Editing Moore's law (section)

== Consequences ==
Digital electronics have contributed to world economic growth in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.<ref name="Rauch" /> The primary driving force of economic growth is the growth of [[productivity]],<ref name="Kendrick 1961 3" /> which Moore's law factors into. Moore (1995) expected that "the rate of technological progress is going to be controlled from financial realities".<ref name="Moore1995" /> The reverse could and did occur around the late-1990s, however, with economists reporting that "Productivity growth is the key economic indicator of innovation."<ref name="Jorgenson01" /> Moore's law describes a driving force of technological and social change, productivity, and economic growth.<ref name="Keyes 2006" /><ref name="Liddle 2006" /><ref name="Kendrick 1961 3" />

An acceleration in the rate of semiconductor progress contributed to a surge in U.S. productivity growth,<ref>{{cite book | citeseerx=10.1.1.198.9555 |title=Information Technology and the U.S. Economy: Presidential Address to the American Economic Association |publisher=[[American Economic Association]] | first = Dale W. | last = Jorgenson | author-link = Dale W. Jorgenson | date = 2000 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=A Retrospective Look at the U.S. Productivity Growth Resurgence |journal = Journal of Economic Perspectives|volume = 22|pages = 3–24| first1 = Dale W. | last1 = Jorgenson | author1-link = Dale W. Jorgenson | first2 = Mun S. | last2 = Ho | first3 = Kevin J. | last3 = Stiroh | date = 2008 |doi=10.1257/jep.22.1.3 | doi-access = free | hdl = 10419/60598 | hdl-access = free }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://bea.gov/papers/pdf/ip-nipa.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://bea.gov/papers/pdf/ip-nipa.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Information Processing Equipment and Software in the National Accounts |publisher=U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis | first1 = Bruce T. | last1 = Grimm | first2 = Brent R. | last2 = Moulton | first3 = David B. | last3 = Wasshausen | date = 2002 |access-date=2014-05-15}}</ref> which reached 3.4% per year in 1997–2004, outpacing the 1.6% per year during both 1972–1996 and 2005–2013.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/OPHNFB |title=Nonfarm Business Sector: Real Output Per Hour of All Persons |publisher=Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Data |year=2014 |access-date=2014-05-27}}</ref> As economist Richard G. Anderson notes, "Numerous studies have traced the cause of the productivity acceleration to technological innovations in the production of semiconductors that sharply reduced the prices of such components and of the products that contain them (as well as expanding the capabilities of such products)."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/es/07/ES0707.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/es/07/ES0707.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=How Well Do Wages Follow Productivity Growth? |publisher=Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses | first = Richard G. | last = Anderson | date = 2007 |access-date=2014-05-27}}</ref>

The primary negative implication of Moore's law is that [[obsolescence]] pushes society up against the [[Limits to Growth]]. As technologies continue to rapidly improve, they render predecessor technologies obsolete. In situations in which security and survivability of hardware or data are paramount, or in which resources are limited, rapid obsolescence often poses obstacles to smooth or continued operations.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Trapped on Technology's Trailing Edge |magazine=IEEE Spectrum |date=April 2008 |access-date=2011-11-27 |url=https://spectrum.ieee.org/trapped-on-technologys-trailing-edge |first = Peter | last = Sandborn | author-link = Peter Sandborn}}</ref>

[[File:Intel.svg|thumb|upright=1.4|Intel transistor gate length trend. Transistor scaling]]