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Subject: Re: Deeper Blue on a single chip?

Author: Walter Faxon

Date: 18:06:02 04/08/05

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On April 08, 2005 at 18:16:15, Tony Petters wrote:

>On April 08, 2005 at 15:50:45, Walter Faxon wrote:
>
>>Just looking around and found this
>>(http://sccs.muldermedia.de/index.php?section=links&subsection=deepblue) record
>>of a talk by Feng-hsiung Hsu at Hot Chips 10 (1998):
>>
>>"He thinks state of the art process can give 30 million chess positions per
>>second in a single chip today.  A small array of such chips plugged into a PC
>>could beat Kasparov.  In a few years (0.18u) a single chip could be as fast as
>>the entire Deep Blue machine."
>>
>>Today MOSIS can supply custom 0.18u chips
>>(http://www.mosis.org/Orders/Prices/price-list-domestic.html#ami12).  I estimate
>>that their undiscounted price for a single (large) 150mm^2 chip to be about
>>$236,625.
>>
>>Hmmm...  I think I'll wait and buy it used!
>>
>>-- Walter
>
>Are you saying that a single CPU can be purchased that makes 30 millions calcs
>per second is available for $ 236,000 ?
>
>DB was clocked at 200 million calcs per second, so why would it be able to beat
>Kasparov ?
>
>Cordially


Not 30 million standard computer instructions, rather 30 million chess positions
per second.  That's move generation, position updating, and a very complex
static evaluator, plus search control.  Equivalent to a thousand or probably
several thousand simple integer instructions per position.  That was possible to
design into a single chip in 1998.  A better chip could be designed and built
today.  You cannot now buy either off the shelf.

M NPS = Million Nodes (positions) Per Second:

1997 -- Deeper Blue, older technology -- 1M NPS/chip x 200 chips = 200M NPS
1998 -- then-current chip technology -- 30M NPS/chip x 7 chips = 210M NPS
2005 -- 0.18u chip technology -- 200M NPS/chip = 200M NPS on a single chip

Dr. Hsu assumes 200M NPS is enough to beat a Kasparov, since it was in 1997.  I
agree since the programming, which has been criticized, can only be improved.
Emerson tan is correct that IBM owns all the DB software, but with enough money
it can be bought or duplicated.  (Probably not bought if by an IBM competitor.)

However, Dr. Hyatt has written elsewhere that due to the increasing power of
standard PCs and programs, there isn't enough of a market to make selling these
chess chips, however packaged, a paying proposition.  It would be a publicity
stunt, like DB itself.

-- Walter



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