Gordon Moore stated that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit will double every 2 years. This trend is known as Moore's Law. In 1978, the Intel 8086 held 29,000 transistors on an integrated circuit.
a. Write a function that represents Moore's Law, where t is the number of years since 1978.
b. How many transistors could be placed on an integrated circuit in 2015?
a. To write a function that represents Moore's Law, we need to determine the rate of growth. According to Moore's Law, the number of transistors doubles every 2 years.
Let's start with the initial number of transistors in 1978, which is 29,000. We can write the function as:
f(t) = 29000 * (2^(t/2))
Here, t represents the number of years since 1978, and f(t) represents the number of transistors that could be placed on an integrated circuit.
b. To find out how many transistors could be placed on an integrated circuit in 2015, we need to calculate the value of f(t) when t is 2015 - 1978 = 37 years.
Using the function mentioned above:
f(37) = 29000 * (2^(37/2))
To solve this, we can plug the equation into a calculator or use a programming language that supports exponentiation. The result will give us the number of transistors that could be placed on an integrated circuit in 2015.