Ace of Spades HQ

May 09, 2013

Moore's Law still good for the foreseeable future [Purp]
— Open Blogger

...The law is named after Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore, who described the trend in his 1965 paper. The paper noted that the number of components in integrated circuits had doubled every year from the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958 until 1965 and predicted that the trend would continue "for at least ten years"...

The move is going to be away from traditional Silicon in the future.

...The process of scaling down chip sizes will require lots of ideas, many of which are taking shape in university research being funded by chip makers and semiconductor industry associations, Holt said. Some of the ideas revolve around new transistor structures and also materials to replace traditional silicon...

The problem with traditional silicon as things get smaller and faster is that its not terribly heat tolerant. This has been the impetus behind multiple smaller "cores" rather than making one big honking uni-core that has the same raw computational power.

With multiple cores, they get physically spread out a bit and are easier to keep cool. Lots of stuff in one place gets hot fast.

One of the new contenders has actually be around for quite a while -- Gallium Arsenide. GaAs has lots of problems though. Its crystals don't grow as uniform as Silicon crystals do, which reduces usable wafer area and raises cost. Its a lot more nasty and toxic than Silicon too.

Silicon Carbide (SiC) is another player. It has outstanding heat resistance (like 2X the melting point of Silicon). Its significantly better at transferring heat than Silicon is. Alas, it too has crystal uniformity issues, although not quite as bad as GaAs. The cool thing about pure'ish SiC is its almost clear like glass. With lasers it can be doped at different depths and layers inside the material, not just on top like with traditional epitaxial methods. I've fiddled with SiC in a lab, its impressive stuff. If the crystal growth irregularity issues could be improved a bit, it could overtake Silicon overnight for high performance devices and things that need to operate in very harsh environments.

MOORE's LAW in action -- check out this low end 1973 vintage IBM 370 "mainframe"

...The Model 115 uses a minimum of two directly-attached IBM 3340 disk drives. Up to four 3340 disk drives may be attached, providing nearly 280 million characters of on-line storage...
...The Model 115 offers the smallest main memory size -- 65,536 characters of data - - in the System/370 line, but also is available with, or may be expanded to, 98,304 characters...
... Typical monthly rentals will range from $5,891 to $8,155...
...Purchase prices will range from $265,165 to $352,115...

A cool quarter mil in 73' bucks for a machine with 64k of memory. 10 years later, a 64k PC would have been considered anemically configured. By the early 1990's a 400M drive cost under $500, and machines were getting fitted with megabytes of memory, not kilobytes.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:41 AM | Comments (52)
Post contains 507 words, total size 4 kb.

1 1st..

Posted by: Snail racing champion at May 09, 2013 01:44 AM (alBzY)

2 SiC is what we use for LEDs.

Posted by: GGE of the Moron Horde, NC Chapter at May 09, 2013 01:46 AM (yh0zB)

3 .

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 09, 2013 01:56 AM (/gHaE)

4 Is anyone else annoyed by calling this a "law"? It is a description of a phenomenon that has strong correlation to an equation given certain conditions (undiscovered tech, unimplemented resources, or whatever). Is it pretty accurate thus far? Yeah it seems so. Is it a necessary law of the universe? I can't see how. Why isn't it called "Moore's Prediction" or "Moore's Pretty Good Rule of Thumb", aside from the catchy-ness. Sorry to nitpick. Just a personal pet peeve.

Posted by: A-Hole at May 09, 2013 01:57 AM (wsGWu)

5 For LED's the crappy wafer uniformity isn't such a big deal. SiC defects tend to be pretty localized.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 09, 2013 01:58 AM (/gHaE)

6 The impetus behind multiple cores is mostly architectural and they end up on the same die so they are really not spread out at all. But, heat is a real problem and limits the clock rate of CPU's. The real problem though isn't in dissipating the heat, but in being able to increase the efficiency so less heat is generated. This is especially important for portable devices for obvious reasons.

Posted by: Endeavor to Persevere at May 09, 2013 02:11 AM (zZJJp)

7 Damn, an early morning thread I have been missing. Moore's law doesn't do me much good using my 100 year old solid state abacus computer.

Posted by: Vic at May 09, 2013 02:17 AM (53z96)

8 SiC defects tend to be pretty localized.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 09, 2013 05:58 AM (/gHaE)

and since you're breaking the wafers up into such small pieces...it works pretty good.

Posted by: GGE of the Moron Horde, NC Chapter at May 09, 2013 02:18 AM (yh0zB)

9 Why isn't it called "Moore's Prediction" or "Moore's Pretty Good Rule of Thumb", aside from the catchy-ness. Sorry to nitpick. Just a personal pet peeve.

Posted by: A-Hole at May 09, 2013 05:57 AM (wsGWu)

Insisting that phrases adhere to what the underlying words really mean? There goes a career in the MFM or popular culture.

Posted by: Captain Hate at May 09, 2013 02:21 AM (jhmyD)

10 Finally after a week of drizzly shitty rainy weather we're finally going to get some sun. That's good because the Heart of Carolina Mustang Club car show is on Saturday.

Saturday is the only day in the next 10 days that there's a chance of rain here in the greater Raleigh area.

Posted by: GGE of the Moron Horde, NC Chapter at May 09, 2013 02:22 AM (yh0zB)

11 on the same die so they are really not spread out at all

The die itself becomes a heat spreader. The interstitial glue logic for things like cache coherency aren't nearly as heat producing.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 09, 2013 02:23 AM (/gHaE)

12 All this reminds me of my first computer. A 340K Kapro with a 20M hard drive and a monochrome monitor that cost me a cool $2,000 bucks. I swore that I was only going to use it for work related projects at home and a few household things. But it didn't take long before I discovered "games" and then I discovered compatibility issues.

The compatibility issue thing hung around even after I got rid of the Kapro got something else. It wasn't until I got Windows that the compatibility things started going away. We can curse Windows and old Bill all we want but he did get rid of that headache.

Posted by: Vic at May 09, 2013 02:30 AM (53z96)

13 I teethed on a PDP-8E with 4k and paper tape. --and I had to walk a mile to school through a snowstorm whippersnapper --although we did get a high speed paper tape reader.

Now that was hacking, when you had to get meaningful things done and the OS took up 3k of the 4k.

Posted by: AE at May 09, 2013 02:34 AM (HYceo)

14 being able to increase the efficiency so less heat is generated

There's only so many ways to do that within a given process. With the bulk of power being consumed on state transitions, you're options are very limited.

Lower voltage and you lower maximum transition speed and performance suffers. Spread things out to decrease local heat buildup, and latency increases. Stack vertical, local heat increases, latency decreases.

With silicon, it been shown possible (experimentally, and patents exist, although they're not Intel's) to morph the Si substrate backside into SiC by laser doping C in to increase its heat dumping ability. That combined with laser etched waffling (my idea) to increase diffusiosn surface area will help in the future.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 09, 2013 02:34 AM (/gHaE)

15 I go back to cheap radio shack computers you hooked up to a tv and the good old days of saving Basic programs to cassette tape then trying to get them to re-load from the same media. Then floppy discs and CPM and Dos and floppies, then Double Dos, then early Windows, finally hard drives, and better Windows, then Netware, then Windows 3.1 with networking. All in a few short years.

Posted by: Not Me, Somebody Else[/i] at May 09, 2013 02:41 AM (U2UQk)

16 How much power did the Apollo moon landing on board computers have

Posted by: Velvet Ambition at May 09, 2013 02:44 AM (R8hU8)

17 Double Dos - I remember that. Actually used it for a brief period when it came out.

I dabbled with TopView too.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 09, 2013 02:44 AM (/gHaE)

18 How much power did the Apollo moon landing on board computers have

Remember the first HP and Ti programmable engineering calculators? About that much, maybe a bit less.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 09, 2013 02:46 AM (/gHaE)

19 How much power did the Apollo moon landing on board computers have

Posted by: Velvet Ambition at May 09, 2013 06:44 AM (R8hU

IIRC it was only 16K

Posted by: Vic at May 09, 2013 02:46 AM (53z96)

20 Posted by: @PurpAv at May 09, 2013 06:46 AM (/gHaE)

I remember the first HP programmable calculator. It came out when I was in the Navy. One of out geeks bought one for only $400. And $400 dollars was a lot of money then.

Posted by: Vic at May 09, 2013 02:48 AM (53z96)

21 Windows 8 will set Moore's Law back a decade Morning all

Posted by: Nevergiveup at May 09, 2013 02:48 AM (9Bj8R)

22 . One of out geeks bought one for only $400. And $400 dollars was a lot of money then. Posted by: Vic at May 09, 2013 06:48 AM (53z96) It's alot of money today also

Posted by: Nevergiveup at May 09, 2013 02:49 AM (9Bj8R)

23 Senior Palestinian Authority Official Says They Would Nuke Israel If They CouldÂ… Same Palestinian Authority Barack Obama Â“unblockedÂ” $500 million in US taxpayer dollars for. Via INN: A senior Palestinian Authority has praised the use of violence against Israel, asserting that if the PA had the military wherewithal to rise up against the Jewish state, it would not hesitate to do so. Â“I swear that if we had a nuke, weÂ’d have used it this very morning,Â” vowed Jibril Rajoub during an interview with the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV channel, as reported by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Lovely.

Posted by: Nevergiveup at May 09, 2013 02:50 AM (9Bj8R)

24 Windows 8 will set Moore's Law back a decade Morning all Posted by: Nevergiveup at May 09, 2013 06:48 AM (9Bj8R) LOL, already this morning. you are right.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at May 09, 2013 02:50 AM (XIxXP)

25 Muslim Brotherhood Takeover Of Egypt Continues, Morsi Appoints Nine Islamists To Key MinistriesÂ… Even if Morsi is tossed from power he will have so many Islamists entrenched in EgyptÂ’s notoriously bloated bureaucracy it wonÂ’t matter. Cairo (AsiaNews) Â– Justice, culture, economy and religion are key areas now under the direct or indirect control of the Muslim Brotherhood. Yesterday, President Mohamed Morsi presented the members of his new cabinet, giving nine ministries to figures affiliated with the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), including Finance, Investment, Justice and Culture. Hisham Kandil, a technocrat, remains prime minister. The new ministers were sworn in at the presidential palace. obama's friend

Posted by: Nevergiveup at May 09, 2013 02:51 AM (9Bj8R)

26 Last year, when Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months in the Russian region of Dagestan, he had a guide with an unusually deep knowledge of the local Islamist community: a distant cousin named Magomed Kartashov. Six years older than Tsarnaev, Kartashov is a former police officer and freestyle wrestlerÂ—and one of the regionÂ’s most prominent Islamists. In 2011 Kartashov founded and became the leader of an organization called the Union of the Just, whose members campaign for sharia law and pan-Islamic unity in Dagestan, often speaking out against U.S. policies across the Muslim world. The group publicly renounces violence. But some of its members have close links to militants; others have served time in prison for weapons possession and abetting terrorismÂ—charges they say were based on fabricated evidence. For Tsarnaev, these men formed a community of pious young Muslims with whom he could discuss his ideas of jihad. TsarnaevÂ’s mother, Zubeidat, confirmed that her son is KartashovÂ’s third cousin. The two met for the first time in Dagestan, she said, and Â“became very close.Â” Surprise Surprise Surprise

Posted by: Nevergiveup at May 09, 2013 02:52 AM (9Bj8R)

27 Yeah, Double Dos was great. Two programs running simultaneously, what a concept. Never crashed either in about a year of running it before switching to Windows. I currently have three Firefox windows open with about 10 tabs in each, a word processor, a media player playing music, Photoshop, a game, and a calculator now running. Sometimes my menu bar at the top runs all the way across the entire screen with programs running. I guess the 'good old days' really weren't so good.

Posted by: Not Me, Somebody Else[/i] at May 09, 2013 02:53 AM (U2UQk)

28 TRS-DOS and AllWrite on a TRS-80 Model 4 (maybe 3? I forget). Put out a nice small-press SF magazine with proportional print and columnizing with 1 5 12 floppy for the program and one for the 'zine itself. First hard drive was a 10 meg on the computer at work. It was great not having to load the programs from floppies!

Posted by: Empire1 at May 09, 2013 02:54 AM (dyKY1)

29 How much RAM are you running?

Posted by: Vic at May 09, 2013 02:54 AM (53z96)

30 IIRC it was only 16K Posted by: Vic at May 09, 2013 06:46 AM (53z96) I actually saw one of the Apollo computers in storage at the Anti-submarine warefare traing center in Virginia beach. It was about the size of a loveseat. Openthe door and it was just banks and banks of small relays. When you watch old Apollo videos you can hear them clicking in the background. 1's and 0's.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at May 09, 2013 02:54 AM (XIxXP)

31 Â“I swear that if we had a nuke, weÂ’d have used it this very morning,Â” vowed Jibril Rajoub

I predict he has a tragic run in with a plate glass window or elevator shaft in the near future.

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 09, 2013 02:55 AM (/gHaE)

32 news up

Posted by: Vic at May 09, 2013 02:58 AM (53z96)

33 I'm running 4 GB of ram on a cheap as hell ASUS laptop. Thinking of buying one for the wife, if I can get Windows 7. No interest in Windows 8, until they change the interface back to normal.

Posted by: Not Me, Somebody Else[/i] at May 09, 2013 02:59 AM (U2UQk)

34 Morning everyone!

Speedbump's widow has just hired a criminal defense attorney...one that has experience defending terror related defendants.

(Lucianne)

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at May 09, 2013 02:59 AM (0IhFx)

35 One of my dad's old calculators would dim the lights in the house. I'm not kidding.

Energy West official: Scratch-and-sniff cards to blame for gas smell in downtown Great Falls http://preview.tinyurl.com/d8pb5q7

Posted by: Baldy at May 09, 2013 03:01 AM (tyDFN)

36 Moore's Law was repealed some time ago. The whole point of more and smaller transitors is greater speed. Yet desk top computers have stalled at about 2.5 GHz for almost 10 years. So has RAM. We had 64 byte, 64 Gb memory almost a decade ago. If Moore's Law were still in force, we would have 30 GHz macines with PB of RAM.

Posted by: bob sykes at May 09, 2013 03:04 AM (KPKpx)

37 I built my TRS-80, floppy drives and hand wire-wrapped expansion bus into a foot locker along with a 60lb surplus communicating IBM selectric and wheeled it off to college. Used a 4x20 character screen Epson HX-20 for portable note taking. Now 16GB is on a micro SD the size of a fingernail.

Posted by: AE at May 09, 2013 03:05 AM (HYceo)

38 Yet desk top computers have stalled at about 2.5 GHz for almost 10 years. So has RAM. We had 64 byte, 64 Gb memory almost a decade ago.

Bob, clock speed != horsepower

L1 sizes are up, L2 sizes are up, cores are up, core complexity is up with many higher end ones being HT, GPU complexity is up.

Increasing main memory beyond what the OS and applications demand is a waste of money. The difference between main memory and L1 is like 10X. From L1 to L2 is usually in the 2X-3X range. At some point simply swapping to SSD makes more economic sense than adding memory

Posted by: @PurpAv at May 09, 2013 03:15 AM (/gHaE)

39 The cost for DNA research is dropping at a faster rate than Moore's law. Big positive consequences for medical research.

Posted by: Bill Ayers at May 09, 2013 03:20 AM (MOSsR)

40 First computer was a Sinclair ZX80(?) It was cool because you could poke machine code into it. I wire wrapped a Z80 with 64k after that. Included an AMD9511! 25 internets to the first one who knows what that was.

Posted by: RolandTHTG at May 09, 2013 03:22 AM (qyoyx)

41 I remember reading that gravity is one of the things that causes irregular crystal sizes and that it is possible to grow more uniform crystal in orbit. This was going to be the big money maker for space industries.

Posted by: Obnoxious A-hole at May 09, 2013 03:22 AM (31Nrp)

42 Math coprocessor in the early days before they were built onto the main CPU.

Posted by: Vic at May 09, 2013 03:23 AM (53z96)

43 Except Vic! He cheats.

Posted by: Roland THTG at May 09, 2013 03:25 AM (qyoyx)

44 The thing about technology is you can get the newest of the new and a nanosecond later it's old.

Posted by: Case at May 09, 2013 03:31 AM (wf3Kt)

I believe it is called a "law" in the sense that it fits in the description of a "law of science." which apparently after looking it up on the never wrong source wikipedia (tongue in cheek on that one) laws of science have a specific set of criteria in order to be called a law.

Posted by: ParanoidGirlInSeattle at May 09, 2013 04:34 AM (RZ8pf)

46 I like glass. It's like lava in super slow motion! Zoom in though, it's kind of boring. In a good way! What hath the Etruscans wrought?

Posted by: Deety at May 09, 2013 04:37 AM (IFXnr)

47 (*radio static sound*) Say again, all technical-sounding bullshit after ''Moore's law still good . . . " (*radio static sound*)

Posted by: Sharkman at May 09, 2013 05:03 AM (6gk77)

48 Just started shopping for a new desktop. I usually go one or two steps down from the fastest CPUs and bulk up on RAM. For my app, its much more important. Currently have 24GB and the app uses up to 12GB per the task manager. It wants 30-40GB to run all in memory, but getting half the installed RAM is about the limit. Windows uses a lot of the rest as a frickin buffer to haul all the crap away to disk. The app is creating 20-60GB databases so there's a whole lotta crap to haul. Use some of the money saved on a marginally slower CPU to get really good disks like serial attach SCSI, as well as the extra RAM. But of course, this is not a gaming or pron-viewing system, its a work system.

Posted by: chuckR at May 09, 2013 05:24 AM (UGxsK)

49 41 Math coprocessor in the early days before they were built onto the main CPU.

Posted by: Vic

ASUS MB did that... I built a DX-40 up in '94 that to be able to play some of the more video intensive games required a math co-processor you plugged in. Little square item that made it jump with the Diamond Stealth video card that had a whooping 1 Mb of onboard RAM.

Posted by: gmac - Pondering the implosion at May 09, 2013 05:25 AM (IanLz)

50 My first "computer" was a $50K phototypesetter from Mergenthaler Linotype. It had 8K of memory and was driven with punched paper tape.

Posted by: Ruthless at May 09, 2013 06:01 AM (/jmMj)

51 Good to see a thread like this on here. It got me to delurk. I'm in the semi equipment industry.

Posted by: SemiProcessMoron at May 09, 2013 08:13 AM (C3KwS)

52 35 Moore's Law was repealed some time ago. The whole point of more and smaller transitors is greater speed. Yet desk top computers have stalled at about 2.5 GHz for almost 10 years. So has RAM. We had 64 byte, 64 Gb memory almost a decade ago.

If Moore's Law were still in force, we would have 30 GHz macines with PB of RAM.

Posted by: bob sykes at May 09, 2013 07:04 AM (KPKpx)

/twitch

Moore's law has nothing to do with the speed. It is entirely about transistor size. Yes, smaller transistor sizes haven't scaled speed as well as we'd like, go complain to physics.

Posted by: ConservativeMonster at May 09, 2013 08:28 AM (sGtp+)

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