Implications of Historical Trends in the Electrical Efficiency of Computing

• Published in: IEEE annals of the history of computing Vol. 33; no. 3; pp. 46 - 54
• Main Authors: Koomey, Jonathan, Berard, Stephen, Sanchez, Marla, Wong, Henry
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Alamitos, CA IEEE 01.03.2011; IEEE Computer Society; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Battery charge measurement; Computation; Computer hardware and multimedia; Computer performance; Devices; Efficiency; Electric variables measurement; electrical efficiency; Electromagnetism; electronics; electrotechnology; Electronics; History; History of computer science; history of computing; History of science and technology; Laptop; Microprocessors; Mobile computing; Moore's Law; Physical sciences and techniques; Portable computers; Power generation; power usage; Smart sensors; Technology; Telephones; Trends; Century 20-21; Electronics; Data processing; Transistor; Computer hardware; Microprocessor
• ISSN: 1058-6180; 1934-1547
• DOI: 10.1109/MAHC.2010.28

The electrical efficiency of computation has doubled roughly every year and a half for more than six decades, a pace of change comparable to that for computer performance and electrical efficiency in the microprocessor era. These efficiency improvements enabled the creation of laptops, smart phones, wireless sensors, and other mobile computing devices, with many more such innovations yet to come. The Web Extra appendix outlines the data and methods used in this study.