PONE-D-21-15557

Moore’s Law Revisited through Chip Density

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Burg,

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Talib Al-Ameri, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: No

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The paper presents a very interesting mathematical analysis of transistor scaling from the invention of the transistor till transistor technology today. However, there are two major drawbacks of the paper/manuscript in its current form:

1) the recent analysed data do not include technology nodes from other semiconductor companies except Intel;

2) the most valuable relation between trends observed in the data and technological changes introduced into technology nodes in order to continue scaling or to continue advancement of the transistor technology is not present.

I would be happy to recommend a revised manuscript for publication if the two major drawbacks above are addressed. To clarify the two points:

1) the data of another semiconductor companies making digital semiconductor transistors from Samsung, TSMC, Global Foundries, IBM, Texas Instrument, SK Hynix, Micron Technology etc.

If the manufacturing of the semiconductor transistors turn to be to broad for the scope of the paper, the work should focus on the segment of the manufacturing of their choice and clearly state the focus.

2) a palette of so-called technology boosters was progressively introduced into the semiconductor manufacturing ranging from the change of Ge to Si, the change of metal interconnects, the change of various dielectrics, device architectures, the amendments of material properties like strain, etc.

In addition, I have the following points which needs to eb addressed too:

3) The (www.loglet.com, version 4). does not exists.

4) References are missing for these statements/claims:

i) Optimized parameter values were then obtained using a simulated annealing Monte Carlo–based genetic algorithm (www.loglet.com, version 4).

ii) Pearson correlations, tests for heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation (Breusch-Godfrey and Durbin-Watson tests, respectively) were performed on the linearized data (R, version 3.5.0).

5) The statements:

'R-squared was not included here'

'The corrected Akaike information criterion (AICc) allows model selection accounting for the complexity of the models'

have no sense.

Please, re-write and clarify.

6) The statement:

'The Automatic Maxima Detection software confirmed this result, showing peak growth rates coinciding with the inflection points

appears from nowhere/from a blue. Please, re-write and introduce.

7) Technical:

7a) To start a new section as 'Therefore, we defined transistor density...' is awkward. Please, re-write.

7b) There are a couple of formal errors as '(mean= 9 yrs).' A floating space. Please, carefully revised the whole text.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Karol Kalna

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Moore’s Law Revisited through Intel Chip Density

PONE-D-21-15557R1

Dear Dr. Burg,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Talib Al-Ameri, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

It will be interesting if you compare the observation of Nvidia’s Jensen Huang with Moore’s Law, (optional).

https://spectrum.ieee.org/move-over-moores-law-make-way-for-huangs-law.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: I am happy with the revised version of the manuscript.

Come on, machine, I have nothing else to write so do not be silly.

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Karol Kalna