Christophe Lécuyer
dates de séjour
discipline
Fonction d’origine
Institution d’origine
Fonction actuelle
Institution actuelle
pays d'origine
lien internet
projet de recherche
Histoire de la loi de Moore
Over the last fifty years, the performance and complexity of microchips has increased exponentially. This trend, commonly known as Moore’s Law, enabled the rise of personal computing and the internet. It also helped transform the human‐built world into a digital world, a world of devices and systems controlled by digital means. What were the social and economic forces that led to exponential growth in microchip performance and complexity? What were the innovations in fabrication technologies and circuit design techniques that made Moore’s Law possible? This project looks for answers to these questions by examining the social, economic, and technological dynamics behind Moore’s Law. It investigates the materials and process innovations that enabled the exponential increase in microchip performance. Another locus of research is the complex of computer‐aided techniques and methodologies that permitted the design of more and more powerful microchips. This project will advance our knowledge of a major technological trajectory and illuminate fundamental changes in the technological fabric of contemporary society – the rise of the digital world.
biographie
Christophe Lécuyer taught history of science and technology at Stanford University and the University of Virginia. He studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris and obtained his doctorate at Stanford. Much of his research has been at the intersection of the history of science and technology, business history, and economic history. He is the author of Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 19301970 (MIT Press, 2006) and the co‐author (with David C. Brock) of Makers of the Microchip: A Documentary History of Fairchild Semiconductor (MIT ress, 2010). Christophe Lécuyer was a principal economic analyst at the University of California.
