Moore's Law will run out of steam during the second decade of the 21st century, after which a sixth computing paradigm will take over.

Judge at the end of 2020. The claim has two parts: (a) Moore's Law (transistor density or cost per transistor in integrated circuits doubling about every two years) will run out of steam during 2011–2020; (b) a new, sixth computing paradigm (such as three-dimensional molecular or other post-2D-silicon computing) will take over as the main driver of price-performance. True: industry data show the classic doubling clearly ended or substantially stalled within 2011–2020, and by the end of 2020 a distinct new paradigm had become the mainstream basis of computing progress. Mixed: (a) holds but no new paradigm had taken over by the end of 2020, or the reverse. Mostly false: Moore's Law only slowed somewhat while broadly continuing, and no new paradigm had taken over, so only a weak version of (a) holds. False: transistor scaling continued at roughly the historical pace through 2020 and no new paradigm emerged. Mostly true is reserved for both parts holding with a minor slip in timing or detail within the decade.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Semiconductors - Stanford Emerging Technology Review Stanford Emerging Technology Review · November 2023

   “cost per transistor started to level off around 2012, and it has not kept up with Moore’s law predictions since then.”

2. E2 Moore And More Semiconductor Engineering · 13 February 2020

   “Now, at each process generation, the cost of processing a wafer is going up faster than the density. So the cost per transistor is rising with each generation.”

3. E3 Seeing Moore’s Law with 2020 Vision: Less Is Now Moore - EE Times EE Times · 16 June 2020

   “In summary, the end of Moore’s Law doesn’t mean that semiconductor companies will innovate any less.”

4. E4 A Century of Moore’s Law SemiAnalysis · 4 February 2023

   “The semiconductor industry stumbled but quickly recovered with a technology fix that stabilized Moore’s Law for another fifteen years, to about 2020 (Chart 1, Stage II).”

E1, E2, E3 and E4 support part (a): cost per transistor levelled off around 2012 and Moore's Law is described as ending around 2020. No evidence item addresses whether a sixth paradigm had become mainstream by the end of 2020, and the absence of such a mention does not settle part (b), which decides between mixed and true.