科技日新月異 下一個科技熱點在哪裏

As the legend goes, in 1964 Dr. Gordon Moore, then at Fairchild Semiconductor, was preparing a paper for Electronics magazine on the evolution of semiconductor memory chips. He decided to plot the capacity of those chips, versus their year of introduction, on some graph paper. There were only a half-dozen or so data points, as memory chips at that point were less than five years old and only contained a few hundred transistors each.

據說，在1964年，當時還在飛兆半導體公司（Fairchild Semiconductor）工作的戈登o摩爾博士正在爲《電子學》（Electronics）雜誌準備一篇有關半導體存儲芯片演化史的論文。他決定把半導體存儲芯片的容量和它們的生產年份用座標圖標釋出來。當時這張圖上只有五六個數據點，因爲半導體芯片剛剛誕生五年，每張芯片上只有幾百個晶體管。

Connecting the dots, Moore noticed a familiar parabolic curve – shallow at the beginning and then quickly turning upwards. Unfortunately, that curve also quickly went straight off the top of the page. So Moore switched to logarithmic paper – that is, with one side in powers of ten — and, stunningly, the memory chips tracked along a straight, nearly horizontal line. Moore, one of the most brilliant individuals in Silicon Valley history (and future Intel INTC -2.74% co-founder), not only knew what this said, but more important, what it meant.

將所有的數據點連起來之後，摩爾發現，這條曲線一開始的走向比較平緩，然後迅速大幅上揚。可惜那條曲線最後跑出了草紙的頂部。於是摩爾又畫了一張對數座標圖，這次他驚奇地發現，將一條座標用10的N次方來計數之後，存儲芯片的發展趨勢呈一條几乎水平的直線。作爲硅谷歷史上最聰明的人之一【也是未來英特爾公司（Intel）的共同創始人】，摩爾不僅明白了這張圖說明了什麼，更重要的是明白了它意味着什麼。

What it said was that semiconductor memory was progressing at a pace never before seen in any product in human history – and if that pace could be maintained the generational leaps would soon be gigantic. This trajectory – at first defined as the doubling of the performance of semiconductor chips every couple years – became known as Moore’s Law.

首先，這張座標圖說明，半導體存儲芯片的發展速度，是人類在任何產品上都不曾見過的——如果這種速度能夠繼續保持下去，很快就會發生重大的代際跨越。後來這根趨勢圖被總結爲“摩爾定律”，即半導體存儲芯片的性能，每一兩年就會翻一番。

But what Moore’s Law meant was that for the first time, perhaps in any industry anywhere, there was now a map into the future. You could track that line decades out into the future – and know exactly what memory chips would be like on any date. And that meant you could plan for that date, and you could build for it. It was a magic key to competitive success.

但是摩爾定律背後的重大意義在於，我們首次有了一張通向未來的路線圖。你可以根據摩爾定律預測幾十年後的情形，而且直到現在，摩爾定律與現實輝映得都一直十分準確。這意味着你可以對未來的某個日子進行規劃和設計。可以說，它是讓你在未來獲得成功優勢的一把神奇鑰匙。

Moore’s Law quickly spread from memory to logic chips and then to the rest of the semiconductor industry – and quickly made the chip business the fastest growing industry. And soon, the most valuable.

摩爾定律很快從存儲芯片擴展到了邏輯芯片，然後又滲透到了半導體行業的其它領域，而且很快使芯片行業成爲增長最快的一個行業，同時也是最具價值的一個行業。

What no one, not even Moore himself, saw coming was that, by the 1980s and 1990s, with tens of billions of chips out in the world, Moore’s Law would break out of electronics and into the rest of the economy. From automotive to infrastructure to genetic research to telephony – companies, laboratories and government agencies discovered that if they could find any way to hook up to Moore’s Law they too could experience exponential growth. One result was the great transformational technology of our time, the Internet.

但是當時，包括摩爾本人在內，所有人都沒有預測到，到了八十年代和九十年代之交的時候，全球的芯片數量數以百億計，摩爾定律已經具有了衝出電子行業，進入國民經濟其它領域的能力。從汽車到基礎建設，從基因研究到電話業務——各大企業、實驗室和政府機構發現，只要他們有能力與摩爾定律掛鉤，就能實現指數級增長。其中的一個結果就是我們這個時代的重大革新技術——互聯網。

In writing my new book on the history of Intel Corporation, The Intel Trinity, I became convinced that we have made a serious mistake being so comfortable with that shallow line. And that mistake begins with Gordon Moore’s change of graph paper. That’s because behind the gently sloping straight line there still lies that dizzying parabolic curve. It is this reality that has been largely forgotten over the last few decades.

在撰寫關於英特爾公司歷史的新書《英特爾三傑》（The Intel Trinity）的過程中，我認識到我們犯了一個嚴重的錯誤，那就是過於相信摩爾劃出的這條平滑曲線。這個錯誤始於戈登o摩爾更換了座標系的那一瞬間。那是因爲在對數座標系上看起來甚爲平緩的直線背後，還隱藏着一條大起大落的拋物線。而過去幾十年的大部分時間裏，我們都忘掉了這個事實。

What lies in that steep arc? Like all parabolic curve, it begins deceptively flat: for the first 40 years, Moore’s Law is a gentle grade. Yet under that comparatively flat curve can be found the minicomputer, the microprocessor, the digital calculator, computer gaming, the personal computer, the Internet, robotics, wireless telephony, the smart phone and electronic commerce – in other words, our world has been utterly transformed by just the shallowest section of this curve.

那麼，那條陡峭的曲線究竟隱藏着什麼？像所有拋物線一樣，它一開始也顯示出帶有迷惑性的平緩趨勢。在頭40年裏，摩爾定律還處於比較溫和的水平。這條相對平緩的曲線在微型計算機、微處理器、數碼計算器、電腦遊戲、個人電腦、互聯網、機器人、無線電話、智能手機和電子商務等領域的發展過程中都能看得到。換句話說，光是這條曲線最平緩的部分，就已經將我們居住的世界完全改造了。

But then, about 2005, roughly the time the newest chips reached 1 billion transistors on their little squares of silicon, everything changed. Suddenly the great accumulating leaps caused by the biannual doubling of Moore’s Law began to turn the curve nearly straight up, heading toward infinity – and tens of billions of transistors on each chip. In other words, Moore’s Law is now jumping the tech world forward each year more than the sum of all that has been accomplished since the birth of Silicon Valley.

但到了2005年的時候，也就是大約到了每塊指甲大的新型芯片可以集成多達10億個晶體管的時候，一切都變了。摩爾定律帶來的量變的積累，使這條曲線陡然出現了幾乎垂直的增長，方向是正無窮，也就是每塊芯片集成幾千億個晶體管。換句話說，摩爾定律爲科技界帶來了跳躍式發展，每年的發展速度都超過了自從硅谷誕生以來所有年頭的總和。

We already have glimmerings. Look at the rise of ‘exponential’ corporations like Facebook FB – the first service product in human history to reach 1 billion regular users – and Twitter TWTR -1.50% . Look as well at the usage curves of the smartphone, the smart tablet, and the Cloud, the last of which essentially makes memory infinite, ubiquitous and free. All of these earthshaking new products and technologies have exploded on the scene in the last 8 years.

我們已經隱約地意識到了這一點。比如Facebook等企業的“指數級”崛起——Facebook是人類歷史上第一項超過10億名常規用戶的服務型產品。此外還有Twitter等。另外你也可以看看智能手機、智能平板電腦和雲服務的使用曲線，尤其是雲服務基本上使我們實現了無限存儲、隨時隨地存儲和免費存儲的能力。所有這些顛覆式的新產品和新技術，都是在過去短短8年之內井噴出來的。

What’s waiting in the wings? The full promise of Big Data – and the end of the 500-year age of sampling and statistics. Soon we’ll be tracking every one of our heartbeats, every fish in the sea and every gust of wind – and we will learn more about the natural world in a few decades than we have in human history. As a billion devices around the world begin to talk with each other, we will also soon be just a minor part of the “The Internet of Things,” which may be a thousand times greater than the human-oriented Internet we currently know.

下一步有什麼在等着我們？首先是大數據以及已經擁有500年曆史的抽樣統計學的潛力將被充分挖掘。很快我們將有能力監測我們的每一次心跳，追蹤海里的每一條魚，地球上的每一陣風。未來幾十年裏，我們對自然界的瞭解，將超過人類有史以來的總和。隨着全球幾十億臺設備實現了交流互聯，我們很快也將成爲所謂“物聯網”的一分子，而物聯網的貢獻，有可能要比以人爲核心的“互聯網”大1000倍。

Further up the curve lies the nanotech revolution. Mobile health and medicine, too. Go up even further and every function of body will be measured every second of our lifetime, and nano-hunter-sensors will swim in our blood helping to hunt down cancer and other diseases.

摩爾定律的另一個潛在的應用領域是納米技術革命，此外還有移動健康和醫學等領域。未來人體的每一項功能、每一秒鐘的人體指標都會被實時監測，納米級的“獵人”傳感器將遊弋在我們的血液中，替我們殺死癌細胞或其它疾病。

Up the curve the line between animation and reality also begins to disappear, and modeling – from new products to new worlds to new lives – become a major part of our daily existence. And it will all start with virtual sex, because in tech it always starts with sex.

沿着摩爾定律的曲線，未來動漫和現實之間的界限也會漸漸消失。建模作爲一項技術也將成爲我們日常生活中的重要部分，無論是產品、我們眼中的世界甚至是我們的生活都可以進行建模。它可能首先會從虛擬性愛開始，因爲科技的發展總是首先從性開始。

And then? If you believe Ray Kurzweil, the line goes vertical, we map our brains into computers and live forever. If you believe Malcolm Gladwell, then the curve will eventually taper off.

然後呢？如果你相信雷o庫茨維爾的論斷，摩爾曲線會呈垂直髮展態勢，我們的大腦可以被掃描進電腦，然後在虛擬世界永遠地活下去。如果你相信馬爾科姆o格拉威德爾的預言，那麼這條曲線最終會遞減直至消失。

But neither scenario may arrive for decades. That means that as long as Intel and other chip companies can sustain Moore’s Law we may live within the Great Inflection for the rest of our lives. And, given the announcement recently by Intel and IBM IBM 0.07%

無論哪種情形，都要等到幾十年後纔會發生。這意味着只要英特爾和其他芯片公司能持續發展下去，摩爾定律將成爲影響我們餘生的“大麴線”。最近英特爾和IBM又發佈了一項革命性的新型芯片晶體管工藝，這意味着事情向樂觀趨勢發展的可能性將非常之大。

of a revolutionary new type of transistor technology for chips, the odds of that occurring look better than ever.

雖然硅谷還沒準備好迎接這種新的發展速度。但不管你是否已經準備好了，未來都在馬不停蹄地到來……而且速度比以往任何時候更快。