What is Rocks Law?
Rock’s Law, named for Arthur Rock, says that the cost of a semiconductor chip fabrication plant doubles every four years. As of 2003, the price had already reached about 3 billion US dollars. Rock’s Law can be seen as the economic flipside to Moore’s Law; the latter is a direct consequence of the ongoing growth of the capital-intensive semiconductor industry-innovative and popular products mean more profits, meaning more capital available to invest in ever higher levels of large-scale integration, which in turn leads to creation of even more innovative products. The semiconductor industry has always been extremely capital-intensive, with very low unit manufacturing costs. Thus, the ultimate limits to growth of the industry will constrain the maximum amount of capital that can be invested in new products; at some point, Rock’s Law will collide with Moore’s Law.
