Data

Moore's law: The number of transistors per microprocessor

About this data

Source

Rupp (2022) – processed by Our World in Data

Last updated

March 9, 2023

Date range

1971–2021

Unit

transistors

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Rupp – Microprocessor Trend Data

This data comes from a repository of microprocessor trend data maintained by Karl Rupp on GitHub.

Where data for several microprocessors is given for a single year, we have shown the highest transistor count per chip of that year.

Retrieved on

March 8, 2023

Retrieved from

https://github.com/karlrupp/microprocessor-trend-data

Citation

This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.

Rupp, K. (2022). Microprocessor Trend Data.

This data comes from a repository of microprocessor trend data maintained by Karl Rupp on GitHub.

Where data for several microprocessors is given for a single year, we have shown the highest transistor count per chip of that year.

Retrieved on

March 8, 2023

Retrieved from

https://github.com/karlrupp/microprocessor-trend-data

Citation

Rupp, K. (2022). Microprocessor Trend Data.

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Moore's law: The number of transistors per microprocessor”. Our World in Data (2026). Data adapted from Rupp. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260512-161845/grapher/transistors-per-microprocessor.html [online resource] (archived on May 12, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Rupp (2022) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

Rupp (2022) – processed by Our World in Data. “Moore's law: The number of transistors per microprocessor” [dataset]. Rupp, “Microprocessor Trend Data” [original data]. Retrieved May 12, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260512-161845/grapher/transistors-per-microprocessor.html (archived on May 12, 2026).

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