Author: martin fierz
Date: 23:47:28 10/17/03
Go up one level in this thread
On October 17, 2003 at 22:18:03, Dann Corbit wrote: >On October 17, 2003 at 19:09:33, martin fierz wrote: > >>On October 17, 2003 at 14:41:10, Dann Corbit wrote: >> >>>On October 17, 2003 at 07:24:49, martin fierz wrote: >>> >>>>On October 16, 2003 at 23:48:18, Dann Corbit wrote: >>>> >>>>>On October 16, 2003 at 22:48:09, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>>>>>On October 16, 2003 at 19:11:20, Dann Corbit wrote: >>>>>>>On October 16, 2003 at 18:49:55, Anthony Cozzie wrote: >>>>>[snip] >>>>>>>>1. Moore's law is NOT A LAW. Its going to come to an end by 2020, if not >>>>>>>>earlier. >>>>>>> >>>>>>>Not a chance. It will continue to accelerate. Of course, I could be wrong. >>>>>> >>>>>>It can't possibly continue to accelerate. Everything is limited by C. Nothing >>>>>>can propagate faster than that. So we are stuck with shrinking to shorten >>>>>>distances so that C doesn't kill us. But then we are limited by how far we >>>>>>can shrink things. IE we now do traces that are a few dozen atoms wide. We >>>>>>won't get to 1-atom widths. And we _certainly_ won't get below that. >>>>> >>>>>Too many assumptions. >>>>> >>>>>Imagine (for instance) if we grow IC's that are 3-dimentional. Suppose (for >>>>>instance, that instead of making 10 nanometer traces on a 1x1 cm flat face, we >>>>>are making 10 nm thick slices linked together in a 1x1x1 cm cube. Now the >>>>>compute power is suddenly 1e8 times larger. >>>> >>>>sounds good at first, but think about this: today's processors generate >>>>something between 10 and 100 watt of heat that you need to remove. since your >>>>idea explicitly attempts to use today's technology, that would mean that you >>>>also generate 1e8 times more heat. 1GW, that's about what an atomic power plant >>>>delivers... now that will need one hell of a cooler :-) >>>>ok, so you say you will go to lower voltages in the future, as we have done in >>>>the past. but there is a limit there too, which is given by the band gap of >>>>silicon. you can't go lower than that, and we are already quite close IIRC. >>>> >>>>>Now, that's just one sort of work-around. I imagine that there are many people >>>>>a lot more clever than I am that can think of even better solutions. (Using DNA >>>>>to compute is a popular idea that may have merit). >>>>> >>>>>When we run out of ways to make the chip faster, why not just add more chips? >>>>>So instead of 1 50 GHz chip, why not use 1000 10 GHz chips? >>>> >>>>because you are increasing the distances again. and many tasks are not easily >>>>parallelizable (e.g. chess...) >>>> >>>>>I would be very surprised if chips fail to follow Moore's law for the next 30 >>>>>years. >>>> >>>>i would be very surprised if they do. the main drivers of moore's law over the >>>>years have been miniaturization, miniaturization and miniaturization. and that >>>>is very definitely going to end in the near rather than in the far future. >>>>moore's law is an empirical observation. the laws of physics are a bit more >>>>solid than that :-) >>>> >>>>you can bet your money on quantum computers, DNA computers or other fancy stuff. >>>>IMO that's the only hope for moore's law in around 10 years time or so. and i >>>>certainly won't bet my money on that kind of sci-fi stuff! >>> >>>Read this (if you have not read it already): >>>http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1 >> >>yeah, i did. during my physics study, i once stumbled across a game called >>"bullshit bingo", which works as follows: all persons listening to a seminar get >>a grid (chessboard-like) with "hype"-words on it. every time the speaker says >>one of the words on your sheet, you cross it out. the first person to have a row >>of the grid crossed out completely is to stand up and shout "bullshit!" - the >>reasoning is that if too many of these hype-terms come up then probably the guy >>is talking BS. i guess i would have been able to shout "BS!" after a minute or >>two of reading this :-) > >I think I agree with most of what he says. > >If the hype word was "exponential" or "doubly exponential" he clearly backed up >everything he said with facts. those were definitely not the hype words i meant :-) cheers martin
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