Reading Comprehension

In 1958, Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit and ushered in the modern computer era. For the first time, using a semiconductor substrate, complete electronic circuits could be miniaturized and mass produced, ultimately leading to the advent of affordable consumer electronics. Unlike discrete circuits, integrated circuits contain a large number of transistors over a relatively small area. A greater number of transistors per circuit allows for faster processing speeds and more memory. Since the early 1960s, advances in photolithography and miniaturization have led to a doubling every two years in the number of transistors that can be cheaply placed on a single integrated circuit. In 1970, a typical integrated circuit could hold around two thousand transistors. In 2008, that number reached two billion. This consistent exponential increase in transistors per circuit and the consequent parallel improvement in computer processing speed and memory has been dubbed "Moore's Law" in honor of computer scientist Gordon Moore, the man who identified the trend.

Perhaps the most marvelous aspect of Moore's Law is its consistency. When Moore and other computer scientists identified the trend in 1965, they believed that the steady doubling of transistors per circuit could not continue much longer than roughly ten years. Instead, the pattern has continued through five decades. Though there have been a number of predictions as to when the trend will finally cease, a broad consensus among engineers and scientists asserts that the trends associated with Moore's Law will finally die out just before 2020. According to these same experts, by then transistors will have become so small as to begin approaching the size of atoms, and at that point will no longer be capable of processing basic logic functions integral to a computer's performance.

Nevertheless, there is reason to believe that Moore's Law may continue decades into the future. Futurist and computer scientist Ray Kurzweil points out that the most important trend identified by Moore's Law is not the increasing number of transistors per integrated circuit, but rather the exponential growth in computing power relative to cost. He argues that even if manufacturers reached a natural physical limit for miniaturized and parallel processing integrated circuits, new technologies, such as quantum computers, could maintain power-to-cost ratio aspect of Moore's Law. Given the number of unexpected new technological paradigms that have invalidated predictions of Moore's Law's demise since the 1960s, there is reason to support such a conclusion.


Ray Kurzweil's argument about the persistence of Moore's Law relies on which of the following assumptions?


(A) Quantum computer circuits can contain far more transistors than integrated circuits.

(B) It is possible for transistors miniaturized to the size of atoms to carry out basic logic functions.

(C) So long as computer engineers are able to continually miniaturize their technologies, there is no natural physical limit to Moore's Law.

(D) The technology that ultimately replaces the integrated circuit will similarly increase computing power at a predictable rate.

(E) The computer scientists and engineers who argue that Moore's Law will end before 2020 overestimate the rate of transistor miniaturization.