Future of chipmaking
芯片制造的未来
Jensen Huang says Moore’s law is dead. Not quite yet
黄仁勋说摩尔定律已死。其实还没有
3D components and exotic new materials can keep it going for a while longer
3D元件和奇异新型材料可给它续会儿命
Two years shy of its 60th birthday, Moore’s law has become a bit like Schrödinger’s hypothetical cat—at once dead and alive. In 1965 Gordon Moore, one of the co-founders of Intel, observed that the number of transistors—a type of electronic component—that could be crammed onto a microchip was doubling every 12 months, a figure he later revised to every two years.
摩尔定律还差两年就要满60岁了，如今它已经变得有点像薛定谔的猫——既死又活。1965年，英特尔公司的联合创始人之一戈登·摩尔提出，一块微芯片上可容纳的晶体管（一种电子元件）的数量每一年就会翻一番，后来他又将翻番的时间从一年改为两年。
- shy (of sth) 【美式英语】欠缺、不足、未达到、不够
- transistor 晶体管；晶体管收音机
- cram 主要指“塞进、塞满”或“挤满、拥进”，多指将一个地方或容器完全填满到看似要溢出的程度，即超出其可以轻松、舒适或安全承受的范围，包括将人或物强行塞进一个小而无法容纳他们的地方或容器，以及一群人走进一个小而无法容纳他们的地方或空间（参见：小词详解 | cram）
That observation became an aspiration that set the pace for the entire computing industry. Chips produced in 1971 could fit 200 transistors into one square millimetre. Today’s most advanced chips cram 130m into the same space, and each operates tens of thousands of times more quickly to boot. If cars had improved at the same rate, modern ones would have top speeds in the tens of millions of miles per hour.
摩尔的言论成了一种追求，为整个计算机行业设定了前进步调。1971年生产的芯片可以在一平方毫米中塞入200个晶体管。如今最先进的芯片可以在同样的面积上塞入1.3亿个晶体管，而且每个晶体管的运行速度也比当初快几万倍。如果汽车也以同样的速度进步，那么现如今汽车的最高时速可达到数千万英里。
- aspiration 渴望、抱负、志向（参见：小词详解 | aspire）
- boot 装入操作系统；启动（计算机）；（计算机）启动，操作系统已安装
Moore knew full well that the process could not go on for ever. Each doubling is more difficult, and more expensive, than the last. In September 2022 Jensen Huang, the boss of Nvidia, a chipmaker, became the latest observer to call time, declaring that Moore’s law was “dead”. But not everyone agrees. Days later, Intel’s chief Pat Gelsinger reported that Moore’s maxim was, in fact, “alive and well”.
摩尔很清楚这一进程不可能永远持续下去。每一次翻番都比上一次更困难、成本也更高。2022年9月，芯片制造商英伟达的老板黄仁勋成为最新一个唱衰摩尔定律的人，他宣称摩尔定律“已死”。但并非所有人都赞同他的观点。几天后，英特尔的CEO帕特·基辛格（Pat Gelsinger）表示，摩尔定律其实还“活得好好的”。
- alive and well 健在的、安然无恙的
