Originally posted by Pål Jensen Moores law isn't applying to viewfinders.
Caveat lector, I'm not disagreeing with Pål (just in case it sounds as if I am).
I have wondered if I should jump in or not, but what the heck...
The underlying phenomenon that was observed by Moore was, that constant advancements in semiconductor design and manufacturing allowed packing /more/ transistors with /lower/ switching latency on a piece of silicon.
Moore stated this phenomenon as an observed relationship between "time" and "speed" - but this must be understood in the context of a time when the chase for "speed" was primordial: remember the days when we thought an 8 MHz CPU was snappy?
That same underlying phenomenon, however, allows building "just as fast as status quo, but less power-hungry" semiconductors. Given that embedded and/or portable devices become more and more prevalent, shaving a quarter of a Watt off of the power consumption becomes (in scale and autonomy) a Big Deal.....and that's the trend that we've started to see in the past, ohh, 5 or so years - and that trend shows no signs of changing. Every semiconductor (& even discrete circuit) design I see (& most ICs that I see built) is presented with energy efficiency as the key performance parameter, rather than "computational speed"....improvements in the former are design requirements, whereas when presented with improvements to the latter they're met with "so, can we underclock it to save a picoWatt..."
So Pål is completely right: Moore's law doesn't apply, as it was expressed by Moore, to viewfinders.
The underlying phenomenon may apply, however, to the circuitry behind viewfinders -- but we're more likely to see that translated into "lower energy consumption for larger autonomy on the same battery". Driving an electronic screen (regardless of technology - if we ignore eInk...) is extremely power-hungry as it is already, guys. And then, there's heat dispersion in all this, that factors in to such designs....
Moore's law is often (mis-)quoted and (mis-)understood in Internet arguments. This thread is no exception.
What's the name of the law that states that regardless of what Pentax releases, the conclusion is that "Pentax is Doomed"?