This Former Intel CEO Wants to Jumpstart Moore’s Law With Light
Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has joined venture capital firm Playground Capital to support startups focused on advanced lithography. He aims to overcome the physical limitations of Moore's Law by utilizing light-based etching technologies for next-generation semiconductors.
Why it matters
Advancements in lithography are critical for the future of AI and high-performance computing as traditional transistor scaling reaches its physical limits.
The following March, Gelsinger announced that he had taken a position as general partner at Playground Capital, a venture capital firm specializing in deep tech, taking bets on fledgling technologies built on new science.
Gelsinger took the role with the aim of helping a new generation of semiconductor startups reawaken Moore’s law. Decades ago, Intel cofounder Gordon Moore predicted that the number of transistors on a chip would double roughly every two years, with a corresponding leap in performance. That held true for a long time, but as semiconductor firms press the limits of physics, further shrinking atomic-scale transistors has become prohibitively difficult and expensive.
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