[outcast]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'d like to see proof it can improve yields of food in a way which increases carrying capacity. There's more to carrying capacity than food, of course.

[Carlhole]

...is another dead idea.

IBM's breakthrough chip technology lights the path to exascale computing

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he new technology, called CMOS Integrated Silicon Nanophotonics, is the result of a decade of development at IBM's global Research laboratories. The patented technology will change and improve the way computer chips communicate – by integrating optical devices and functions directly onto a silicon chip, enabling over 10X improvement in integration density than is feasible with current manufacturing techniques.

IBM anticipates that Silicon Nanophotonics will dramatically increase the speed and performance between chips, and further the company's ambitious Exascale computing program, which is aimed at developing a supercomputer that can perform one million trillion calculations—or an Exaflop—in a single second. An Exascale supercomputer will be approximately one thousand times faster than the fastest machine today.

[vision-master]

Now if only they can light up a big splif and figure out something useful for all this power other than making digital dollars faster. Maybe they can connect employees directly into this new system and monitor all thoughts and actions.

[Sixstrings]

Moore's Law is pretty well established.. barring a total lights-out "world made by hand" situation, Moore's Law will stand.

Anyone who's been alive for the last forty years has seen Moore's Law in action first hand, computers and personal electronics getting smaller and more powerful year after year. Don't mean to sound like a cornucopian, just recognizing reality.

[The_Toecutter]

Moore's Law does have physical limitations. It will not be possible to make a transistor smaller than an atom, for example.

Our computer technology will probably begin to be restricted in growth due to physical limitations within the next 20-25 years. IMB has already demonstrated using xenon atoms held on a magnetic grid to spell out its name; we will see if someday this results in the fastest possible processor or most dense hard drive physically possible.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Toecutter', 'M')oore's Law does have physical limitations
...
Our computer technology will probably begin to be restricted in growth due to physical limitations within the next 20-25 years.

[jedrider]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')BM's breakthrough chip technology lights the path to exascale computing

[smiley]

What is funny is that Moore's law isn't a law. It actually is an industry guideline.

Every semi device or equipment manufacturer has the IRTS roadmap on its wall (http://www.itrs.net/). This is basically a detailed version of Moore's law.

With this roadmap they exactly know, which node to deliver at what point in time, and can start technological development years in advance.Without it would be a complete mess because a node shift requires hundreds of suppliers and developers to deliver a technology step at the same time. It is amazing to see a whole worldwide industry working in unity to obtain that common goal.

Moores law works IMO because humans when they get their act together can achieve pretty amazing things. If only they acted in the same way on energy.

Will Moore's law hold? I don't know. Moore's law was already becoming problematic 5 years ago with the advance of parallel processing. For logic the benefits of further shrink are not really apparent. However at the same time the demand for flash memory was exploding which saved the shrink.

But memory also has its limitations, which are human in nature. Moore in memory means you can store more at higher resolution in smaller volumes. But of course there is no use in developing an I-pod that is too small too handle with more music than you can listen to in a lifetime in a higher resolution than the human ear can distinguish.

So unless there will come new applications, Moore's law will loose its main driver in a few years time. But every prediction in this field has the potential of ending up as Gate's famous "64k ought to be enough for everyone" remark.

[radon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', '
')
Moores law works IMO because humans when they get their act together can achieve pretty amazing things. If only they acted in the same way on energy.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his is the law of diminishing marginal utility when applied to the consumer-driven technology advancement.

[radon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', '
')2 years ago you did not have google streetview, 5 years ago you did not have acces to realtime weather data, 10 years ago you did not have GPS car navigation, 15 years ago internet was a difficult and sluggish creature with little practical use other than to ping your geek friends, 20 years ago you had to go to a bank and write a paper cheque to get some money.

[PEAKINT]

Not to rain on anyone's party, but we have already peaked technologically. Moore's law died at 28nm

http://electroiq.com/blog/2014/03/moore ... d-at-28nm/

[ohanian]

http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/devices/the-status-of-moores-law-its-complicated

An article from back in 2013

In the mid-1990s, when such chips were the state of the art, 0.35 µm was an accurate measure of the finest features that could be drawn on the chip. This determined dimensions such as the length of the transistor gate, the electrode responsible for switching the device on and off. Because gate length is directly linked to switching speed, you’d have a pretty good sense of the performance boost you’d get by switching from an older-generation chip to a 0.35-µm processor. The term “0.35-µm node” actually meant something.

But around that same time, the link between performance and node name began to break down. In pursuit of ever-higher clock speeds, chipmakers expanded their tool kit. They continued to use lithography to pattern circuit components and wires on the chip, as they always had. But they also began etching away the ends of the transistor gate to make the devices shorter, and thus faster.

After a while, “there was no one design rule that people could point to and say, ‘That defines the node name,’” says Mark Bohr, a senior fellow at Intel. The company’s 0.13-µm chips, which debuted in 2001, had transistor gates that were actually just 70 nm long. Nevertheless, Intel called them 0.13-µm chips because they were the next in line. For want of a better system, the industry more or less stuck to the historical node-naming convention. Although the trend in the measurements of transistors was changing, manufacturers continued to pack the devices closer and closer together, assigning each successive chip generation a number about 70 percent that of the previous one. (A 30 percent reduction in both the x and y dimensions corresponds to a 50 percent reduction in the area occupied by a transistor, and therefore the potential to double transistor density on the chip.)

[ohanian]

http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/16/8976223/intel-q2-2015-earnings-moores-law-skylake-kaby-lake-cannonlake

Tick Tock. Moore's law has stumbled

During a conference call to discuss Intel's latest earnings, CEO Brian Krzanich explained that "the last two technology transitions have signaled that our cadence today is closer to 2.5 years than two." Manufacturing advances haven't progressed at the same pace as before, which is why the company has now seen it necessary to inject the Kaby Lake model into next year and is holding off on Cannonlake, the 10nm, chip, until later into the decade.

[PEAKINT]

Yeah, so much for Star Trek, Omega Point, Singularity, Fusion, Skynet, etc.
Never going to happen. We can't even simulate a worm : http://www.openworm.org/

I've been pissed off at Nvidia. For three generations now they have been stuck at 28nm. Even the Titan X is still at 28nm. For a $1000+ USD (in Q2 2015) graphics card, you'd think one could play 4k gaming at above 30fps? Crysis 3 (old as hell game now) still only does 20fps at 4k on the 28nm Titan X that costs MORE than a PS4 + XboxOne combined. Something not right with that.

Hoping technology will solve our problems and continue to save the day when technology itself has peaked? Good luck with that.

[davep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')eak Compute

[PEAKINT]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')eak Compute

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')
Tick Tock. Moore's law has stumbled

During a conference call to discuss Intel's latest earnings, CEO Brian Krzanich explained that "the last two technology transitions have signaled that our cadence today is closer to 2.5 years than two."