To see Moore's law in action, you have get extra close to the central processing unit (CPU). This tiny 32-bit Motorola 68030, with 273,000 transistors - each with data caches of 256 bytes - was captured by Miami-based photographer Christoph Morlinghaus for his Computerwelt series.
Read more: What is Moore's Law? WIRED explains the theory that defined the tech industry
"It's possible to cram so much information and components on to such a small object," says Morlinghaus, "it's like an aerial view of a city."
To expose the workings of the one-square-centimetre chip, Morlinghaus opened the microprocessor by melting the welding material before placing it 2.5cm away from his camera. Each transistor - shown here as the densely packed blocks that make up the "roofs" of the cityscape - is only one millimetre in diameter, so getting them in focus wasn't easy. "Nobody has taken photographs of something so small on 8 x 10 film before," he says.
Morlinghaus has photographed chips by manufacturers from Cyrix to Intel. So, having seen their rapid growth up close, what does he think about the inevitable slowdown to come? "In light of the environmental impact of electronic waste, perhaps people will hold on to their phones, tablets and computers for a bit longer," he says.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
