Cloud Computing: Watch Out Intel, Here Comes Facebook

For 50 years, the computer-chip industry has ridden a road of economic miracles, but now it’s reaching an end, and a potential crisis is unfolding for some of the industry’s biggest names.  The phenomenon known as Moore’s Law, which held that the number of transistors on a chip doubled every two years while the cost fell by half, led to vibrant markets such as the personal computer, with ever-rising performance and falling prices.

But Moore’s Law is now breaking down, and the physics of chips is becoming treacherous. Approaching the atomic level in size, transistors have started performing less reliably, making them less efficient. Intel and other semiconductor makers have had to add extra manufacturing steps, increasing costs…

 

“The semiconductor industry is up against an economic problem,” says Linley Gwennap, a longtime chip-industry analyst. “Now that you can’t automatically reduce the cost to get the same performance, Intel and the rest are stuck trying to justify the investment.”…

Read more from the source @ http://www.barrons.com/articles/watch-out-intel-here-comes-facebook-1446267567