5 ms·
Being so fast(at such a complex node), it makes me wonder: was moore's law, i.e. a doubling every 18 months just an anti-competitive collaboration among the ind
by petra 10y ago
Being so fast(at such a complex node), it makes me wonder: was moore's law, i.e. a doubling every 18 months just an anti-competitive collaboration among the industry to slow down ? could they have improved the technology much faster ?
- colechristensen 10y agoIt doesn't have to be anticompetitive conspiracy, milking current technologies for all they've got make sense in a lot of ways. Making your previous generation profitable by delaying your next generation a little means your business can last in the long term. Releasing things ASAP in every instance means in many circumstances competing with yourself. This is a cost of capitalism but it comes with the benefits of a self-sustaining system and more predictable futures. If politicians were funding processors, you'd bet they wouldn't want to spend the resources to double processor parameters every 18 months.
- elcct 10y agoIf politicians were funding a processor we will have processor operator licenses that every computer user should have to legally use a computer and we will have 12cm process with processor connected via landline to the ministry of truth. There would also be half processors for free for the poor.
- anabis 10y agoConsidering that a lot of current semiconductor demand comes from games, politicians would be hard pressed to come up with that channel of funding in the first place. Heck, I probably won't think to tax games to fund chip foundries.
- sokoloff 10y agoIf they could spend it in their district, it's a safe bet they would...
- oldmanjay 10y agoWhen Moore made his famous observation, there were many competitors in the chipmaking industry. Do you have a single sign from that era of anti-competitive behavior?
- rocqua 10y agoNot to support OP's point, but there is a decent example. Intel, for a while, kept AMD in the game and licensed them x86 simply to avoid anti-trust laws (basically, Microsoft just got shafted so they wanted to be able to point to AMD and say "we have competition"). IIRC they later on actually invested in AMD to keep them solvent for the same reasons.
- xyzzy123 10y agoIts not just anti trust. .mil is a lot happier if there are multiple sources for chips.
- huxley 10y agoNot quite what happened, Intel got stuck itself in several anti-trust quagmires because of their attempts to rescind the x86 license that IBM forced Intel to give to AMD when the 8088 was selected for the original IBM PC. Intel did everything it could to avoid keeping AMD in the game, including paying Dell off to not use AMD chips. I don't recall ever hearing about Intel investing in AMD, maybe you're thinking of the $1.25 billion settlement Intel had to pay AMD for various lawsuits Intel was in danger of losing and potentially having to pay triple damages.
- rocqua 10y agoThanks for the correction :)
- Zenst 10y agoThe Microsoft aspect you mention I feel you may be confusing with the time in the 90's iirc that Microsoft invested into Apple to prop up competition. AMD is not competition to Microsoft or ever has been.
- trendia 10y agoAMD has lost so much market share, there's no way they would collaborate with Intel. If AMD had tech that Intel didn't, they'd use it.
- andrepd 10y agoMeh, I'll wait for Zen before I draw conclusions.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- imtringued 10y agoCalling it 10nm or 14nm or 22nm is just marketing. Every manufacturer can call their manufacturing process whatever they want. If you actually look at the physical metrics like the minimum gate length, contacted gate pitch and minimum metal pitch then you will see that on the same "nm" process intel's process is always better.