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How did the number of components on an integrated circuit change from 1960 to 1970?
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Between 1960 and 1970, the number of components on an integrated circuit increased significantly. Early integrated circuits in 1960 contained approximately 10 individual components on a silicon chip. By 1970, that number had grown to 1,000 components on a chip of the same size, achieved at no increase in cost.1
This rapid growth in circuit complexity was driven by the steadily shrinking size of transistors, a trend famously observed by Gordon Moore in 1965. His observation, which became known as Moore’s law, noted that the number of components on a chip was roughly doubling each year during that period.213