Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 18:26:08 10/20/03
Go up one level in this thread
On October 18, 2003 at 12:26:50, Anthony Cozzie wrote: >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. > >from article: >After sixty years of devoted service, Moore's Law will die a dignified death no >later than the year 2019. By that time, transistor features will be just a few >atoms in width, and the strategy of ever finer photolithography will have run >its course. > >Sounds remarkably like what a certain poster was saying ;) Well, I have to go along with that. My only point is that Moore's law is not the end of computational speed expansion. I expect it to go on exponentially for quite some time. Transistors will hit a wall at some point. But another technology will take over then.
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