An indispensable part of our lives, computing has also become essential toindustries and governments. Steady improvements in computer hardware have beensupported by periodic doubling of transistor densities in integrated circuitsover the last fifty years. Such Moore scaling now requires increasingly heroicefforts, stimulating research in alternative hardware and stirring controversy.To help evaluate emerging technologies and enrich our understanding ofintegrated-circuit scaling, we review fundamental limits to computation: inmanufacturing, energy, physical space, design and verification effort, andalgorithms. To outline what is achievable in principle and in practice, werecall how some limits were circumvented, compare loose and tight limits. Wealso point out that engineering difficulties encountered by emergingtechnologies may indicate yet-unknown limits.
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