The Post-Moore Era

Could Molecular Electronics Keep the Pace?

- By Caitlin Ryan, Ossila, UK

Molecular electronics could continue semiconductor advances in a post-Moore era. Here we break down how molecular diodes, wires, and logic gates work, examine recent commercial breakthroughs, and look at the feasibility of integrating molecular components into existing semiconductor workflows. Can molecules really take us beyond the limits of lithography, or is this just another lab-bound dream?

Moore's Law is a theory that came from one of Intel's co-founders, Gordon Moore, back in 1965. He observed that the number of transistors that could be placed on an integrated circuit was doubling roughly every two years.

This theory was never meant to last forever. In fact, Moore himself predicted that it would only continue for around 10 years (up to 1975). In reality, Moore's law has continued to hold true right up into the 21st century and has been a driving force for development within the semiconductor industry, with Apple's 2025 ARM-based M3 Ultra SoC containing a staggering 184 billion transistors.

Despite this, we're now starting to see signs that we're fast approaching a post-Moore era. Silicon-based transistors can only get so small before the laws of physics start to get in the way. We're already measuring transistors on the atomic scale, with the smallest commercially available transistor measuring at 3 nanometers (only slightly wider than a strand of human DNA, which is roughly 2.5 nanometers wide). There's still some room to go smaller, and IBM recently announced their 2 nanometer chip, but progress is slow and understandably expensive. [1]