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Moore's law may become irrelevant long before it becomes invalid. Without rapid increases in usable computing power, the reasons for upgrading have largely disa

by mark-r 11y ago

Moore's law may become irrelevant long before it becomes invalid. Without rapid increases in usable computing power, the reasons for upgrading have largely disappeared. In particular the chips at the top of the profit margin curve, where Intel loves to play, are much less compelling. Intel might eventually find itself in the same shoes Kodak did - when your primary business dries up, there's unlikely to be a follow-on that is successful enough to keep the company going.

robertelder 11y ago
Yes, this thought really makes me wonder about where the future hardware computing advances will come from. How long is it going to take for a new company to 'disrupt' the processor industry in a way that the behemoths of today wouldn't have expected or weren't able to do. I would guess at least 10 years from now.
- akuma73 11y ago
  The end of Moore's Law has broad industry-wide implications. Imagine if Moore's Law had ended in the year 2000 - no smartphones... A lot of future technologies that rely on exponential increases in silicon capability will not be possible. It's almost impossible to replicate an exponential. The rate of progress will slow and look more like more mature industries such as aerospace.
noir_lord 11y ago
I'm not convinced that moores law has ended (using the processing power doubles not transistor count doubles). We've hit the physical limits of our current processes but we haven't remotely hit the physical limits of..well physics. It's possible that we are on the flat before the next curve starts whether that curve will reach the consumer space I don't know but at the top end of computing (supercomputers) there is still massive demand for more processing power.
- mark-r 11y ago
  It doesn't matter if Moore's law still holds or not, it's become irrelevant for most of the PC market. That's the point I was trying to make. There are always good uses for more computing power, but not on the desktop where the big volumes are.
- prewett 11y ago
  What makes you think we haven't started to hit physical limits of physics? A 4nm transistor is 7 atoms wide. Obviously, a one atom transistor is pretty much the absolute smallest possible, which would be about .5nm. Anything less than 7nm experiences quantum tunneling, which is going to really mess things up, and will get worse the smaller the size. [1] I imagine the interference between transistors will be fun... Next, how exactly are you going to make these atom-sized objects in quantity? You can't be manually placing atoms. But lithography has a hard physical diffraction limit, forcing the use of higher frequency light. The higher the frequency, the greater the energy. Etching single-atom features will require hard x-rays, which we may not even have technology to generate. Even if we do, focusing x-rays is not trivial, as you can't just slap in a glass lens. Plus, the focal lengths may be rather long. And what kind of photoresist do you use? Hard x-rays are likely to blast pretty much anything, and the etching characteristics are probably not neat little troughs. How do you ensure you have your one atom stay put when everything around it is being blasted by high-energy x-rays? I think the physical limits are looming pretty large. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nanometer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nanometer
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    Maybe but (and I could be way off I'm a programmer not a physicist) those limits are pretty much the limits on our current technology, it's a bit like saying "well we've reached the point of diminishing returns with this steam engine, that's it no more progress" and over in a shed somewhere else someone is inventing the AC electric motor. I'm optimistic because I've seen "end of progress" reports on computing power since I was a kid in the 80's. We are long way away from this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremermann's_limit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremermann's_limit We've known for ages that Germanium and similar offer better characteristics than Silicon but the cost to improve silicon has stayed below the cost to retool for Germanium til now, if we do hit the limit at 5nm silicon then the cost equation changes and alternate materials become worth the investment.
a3n 11y ago
> Without rapid increases in usable computing power, the reasons for upgrading have largely disappeared. 1. Force Windows 10 upgrade. 2. Windows 10 sucks on this computer! 3. Buy Windows 10 compatible computer.
- mark-r 11y ago
  Microsoft's not stupid, they realize that people are keeping their computers longer than ever. They're also trying hard to make Windows 10 run on the widest range of machines possible. So I think it's a priority of theirs to make sure it doesn't suck. They don't want a repeat of Windows XP where nobody upgraded!
  - mintplant 11y ago
    > They're also trying hard to make Windows 10 run on the widest range of machines possible. Why do you say so? Do you work at Microsoft? Anecdotally: I upgraded a somewhat older laptop to Windows 10 and found that the screen brightness was locked to full. Called up support and was told that no, there's no fix and no, there won't be one for the foreseeable future - mine isn't a "supported system", so it has to stay on Windows 7. Looked up the issue online and found many others with the same problem going back to release day.
- baq 11y ago
  except windows 10 works, to my anecdotal experience, better than windows 7 on the same box.

by mark-r 11y ago

robertelder 11y ago

Yes, this thought really makes me wonder about where the future hardware computing advances will come from. How long is it going to take for a new company to 'disrupt' the processor industry in a way that the behemoths of today wouldn't have expected or weren't able to do. I would guess at least 10 years from now.

akuma73 11y ago
The end of Moore's Law has broad industry-wide implications. Imagine if Moore's Law had ended in the year 2000 - no smartphones... A lot of future technologies that rely on exponential increases in silicon capability will not be possible. It's almost impossible to replicate an exponential. The rate of progress will slow and look more like more mature industries such as aerospace.

noir_lord 11y ago

I'm not convinced that moores law has ended (using the processing power doubles not transistor count doubles). We've hit the physical limits of our current processes but we haven't remotely hit the physical limits of..well physics. It's possible that we are on the flat before the next curve starts whether that curve will reach the consumer space I don't know but at the top end of computing (supercomputers) there is still massive demand for more processing power.

mark-r 11y ago
It doesn't matter if Moore's law still holds or not, it's become irrelevant for most of the PC market. That's the point I was trying to make. There are always good uses for more computing power, but not on the desktop where the big volumes are.
prewett 11y ago
What makes you think we haven't started to hit physical limits of physics? A 4nm transistor is 7 atoms wide. Obviously, a one atom transistor is pretty much the absolute smallest possible, which would be about .5nm. Anything less than 7nm experiences quantum tunneling, which is going to really mess things up, and will get worse the smaller the size. [1] I imagine the interference between transistors will be fun... Next, how exactly are you going to make these atom-sized objects in quantity? You can't be manually placing atoms. But lithography has a hard physical diffraction limit, forcing the use of higher frequency light. The higher the frequency, the greater the energy. Etching single-atom features will require hard x-rays, which we may not even have technology to generate. Even if we do, focusing x-rays is not trivial, as you can't just slap in a glass lens. Plus, the focal lengths may be rather long. And what kind of photoresist do you use? Hard x-rays are likely to blast pretty much anything, and the etching characteristics are probably not neat little troughs. How do you ensure you have your one atom stay put when everything around it is being blasted by high-energy x-rays? I think the physical limits are looming pretty large. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nanometer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nanometer
- noir_lord 11y ago
  Maybe but (and I could be way off I'm a programmer not a physicist) those limits are pretty much the limits on our current technology, it's a bit like saying "well we've reached the point of diminishing returns with this steam engine, that's it no more progress" and over in a shed somewhere else someone is inventing the AC electric motor. I'm optimistic because I've seen "end of progress" reports on computing power since I was a kid in the 80's. We are long way away from this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremermann's_limit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremermann's_limit We've known for ages that Germanium and similar offer better characteristics than Silicon but the cost to improve silicon has stayed below the cost to retool for Germanium til now, if we do hit the limit at 5nm silicon then the cost equation changes and alternate materials become worth the investment.

a3n 11y ago

> Without rapid increases in usable computing power, the reasons for upgrading have largely disappeared. 1. Force Windows 10 upgrade. 2. Windows 10 sucks on this computer! 3. Buy Windows 10 compatible computer.

mark-r 11y ago
Microsoft's not stupid, they realize that people are keeping their computers longer than ever. They're also trying hard to make Windows 10 run on the widest range of machines possible. So I think it's a priority of theirs to make sure it doesn't suck. They don't want a repeat of Windows XP where nobody upgraded!
- mintplant 11y ago
  > They're also trying hard to make Windows 10 run on the widest range of machines possible. Why do you say so? Do you work at Microsoft? Anecdotally: I upgraded a somewhat older laptop to Windows 10 and found that the screen brightness was locked to full. Called up support and was told that no, there's no fix and no, there won't be one for the foreseeable future - mine isn't a "supported system", so it has to stay on Windows 7. Looked up the issue online and found many others with the same problem going back to release day.
baq 11y ago
except windows 10 works, to my anecdotal experience, better than windows 7 on the same box.