Author: Tom Likens
Date: 08:06:08 06/04/04
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On June 03, 2004 at 09:47:59, Anthony Cozzie wrote: >Moore's law applies to increasing IC density, not speed. > >His 3 Petahertz computer is obviously the result of considerable alcohol or drug >use. > >Speed of Light: 3 X 10^8 m / s > >3 Petahertz: 3 * 10^15 cycles / second > >Speed of Light / 3 Petahertz = 10^-7 m / cycle = 100 nm / cycle. > >Therefore this chip can be no more than 100 nm across - and that is being >generous, as electrons are considerably slower than light. This is smaller than >a single transistor on an Opteron today (130 nm feature size). If such a >computer can be built, it will certainly not be using CMOS as we know it. There >are other things on the horizon, but there is certainly no reason that Moore's >law will apply to them. > >anthony I believe chips have followed Moore's law because everyone "knew" they were supposed to shrink at the rate Moore set out. 90nm and below is going to be another story. Already 90nm has serious yield problems and outrageous mask costs (~1M+) and NRE, and it's just going to get worse as we apply OPC and phase-shifting to more and more layers. Also the electrical effects that we need to take into account now to make 90nm work are horrendous- transmission line effects *on-chip*, inductance, cross-talk (including miller effect), severe IR drop etc. etc. Most of our customers are balking at moving to 90nm since they don't really see the need and can't justify the cost. regards, --tom
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