23 ms·

Well, Moore's law is already dead. Intel missed the mark last year. As far as shrinking transistors further, isn't 7nm the physical limit? Edit: I'm mistake

by luhn 10y ago

Well, Moore's law is already dead. Intel missed the mark last year. As far as shrinking transistors further, isn't 7nm the physical limit? Edit: I'm mistaken. Transistors as small as 1nm have been developed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nanometer#Technology_demos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nanometer#Technology_demos

Analemma_ 10y ago
When transistors stop shrinking- whether that's at 10, 5 or 7nm- the limit is going to be economic, not physical. Intel probably could make a chip with 1nm transistors; the question is whether it would ever deliver a positive ROI, since - the R&D and the fabs would probably cost a zillion dollars, in a shrinking market for high-performance CPUs - yields would probably be very low, even as the process matured - this problem is becoming more and more pronounced with the latest generations - the advantages over the current chips would not be great; note svantana's comment about diminishing returns with the most recent process shrink
- curiousgal 10y ago
  >a shrinking market for high-performance CPUs It is??
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    Well, for chips that are, say, twice as fast as the best current chips for three times the money, I suspect that the market is in fact shrinking, because for most people, current chips are good enough. There's still plenty of people who want more speed badly enough to pay for it, but my impression is that there aren't as many as there used to be.
    - tracker1 10y ago
      Agreed, there's still plenty of people hitting pain with Image/Video processing, 3D development (design or programming), 4K video/gaming/modelling are definitely still out there... Upgraded to an i7-4790K almost 2 years ago, and while not willing to drop another $1500 to upgrade to the latest CPU/MB, I have been keeping an eye open.
    - ethbro 10y ago
      Or in other words, the market for single-chip performance is shrinking. The hyperscale folks care about how much physical space given performance takes, but that's likely more energy/performance than chipcount/performance constrained.
  - tracker1 10y ago
    That was my thought too... Facebook, Google/GCE, Amazon/AWS, Azure, U.S. and Chinese governments probably account for most CPU purchases from Intel.
    - deepnotderp 10y ago
      The "super 7" as they're called, account for ~60% of Intel's data center revenue, which accounts for ~60% of their profit. 7 companies provide Intel with 36% of its profit...
      - anoonmoose 10y ago
        I mean, that's bog-standard 80-20 rule stuff, innit?
      - kdeldycke 10y ago
        The "Super 7" are: Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. Source: http://fortune.com/2015/11/15/intel-super-7/ http://fortune.com/2015/11/15/intel-super-7/
dogma1138 10y ago
It's important to note that none of the processes actually describe a physical size anymore. They used too now it's just PR, a 10nm 14nm or 7nm processes don't actually have anything that is the process "size" in size. Together with various optimization the process name is "analogous" to a hypothetical CMOS lithography with of that scale.
deepnotderp 10y ago
There's a BIG difference between transistors being developed and having sustainable manufacturing processes and good yields. Intel actually taped out an internal chip on 10nm, but then "mysteriously" scrapped it. Likely because of bad yields... And that's not even dealing with the demon of quantum tunneling which IMO will likely kill node shrinks even harder. Finally, the other comment is right, Dennard scaling is dead, and thermals have become the primary constraint in chip design. FinFETs have somewhat helped with this, but it's not enough.
sqeaky 10y ago
Only for some interpretations of Moore's law. The strictest readings count transistors in CPUs. But plenty take it as a general prediction in the doubling of performance of hardware. Computing things still get cheaper as more tech gets included. For example, Someone working in AI or video games can drop a $1000 on a Cuda enabled GPU and get more than a 10x more performance increase then they could reasonably get with that $1000 3 years earlier. This is much more than the two doublings some interpretations of Moore's law predicts. Not all performance increases are going to be inside the most complex part.

by luhn 10y ago

Analemma_ 10y ago

When transistors stop shrinking- whether that's at 10, 5 or 7nm- the limit is going to be economic, not physical. Intel probably could make a chip with 1nm transistors; the question is whether it would ever deliver a positive ROI, since - the R&D and the fabs would probably cost a zillion dollars, in a shrinking market for high-performance CPUs - yields would probably be very low, even as the process matured - this problem is becoming more and more pronounced with the latest generations - the advantages over the current chips would not be great; note svantana's comment about diminishing returns with the most recent process shrink

curiousgal 10y ago
>a shrinking market for high-performance CPUs It is??
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  Well, for chips that are, say, twice as fast as the best current chips for three times the money, I suspect that the market is in fact shrinking, because for most people, current chips are good enough. There's still plenty of people who want more speed badly enough to pay for it, but my impression is that there aren't as many as there used to be.
  - tracker1 10y ago
    Agreed, there's still plenty of people hitting pain with Image/Video processing, 3D development (design or programming), 4K video/gaming/modelling are definitely still out there... Upgraded to an i7-4790K almost 2 years ago, and while not willing to drop another $1500 to upgrade to the latest CPU/MB, I have been keeping an eye open.
  - ethbro 10y ago
    Or in other words, the market for single-chip performance is shrinking. The hyperscale folks care about how much physical space given performance takes, but that's likely more energy/performance than chipcount/performance constrained.
- tracker1 10y ago
  That was my thought too... Facebook, Google/GCE, Amazon/AWS, Azure, U.S. and Chinese governments probably account for most CPU purchases from Intel.
  - deepnotderp 10y ago
    The "super 7" as they're called, account for ~60% of Intel's data center revenue, which accounts for ~60% of their profit. 7 companies provide Intel with 36% of its profit...
    - anoonmoose 10y ago
      I mean, that's bog-standard 80-20 rule stuff, innit?
    - kdeldycke 10y ago
      The "Super 7" are: Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. Source: http://fortune.com/2015/11/15/intel-super-7/ http://fortune.com/2015/11/15/intel-super-7/

dogma1138 10y ago

It's important to note that none of the processes actually describe a physical size anymore. They used too now it's just PR, a 10nm 14nm or 7nm processes don't actually have anything that is the process "size" in size. Together with various optimization the process name is "analogous" to a hypothetical CMOS lithography with of that scale.

deepnotderp 10y ago

There's a BIG difference between transistors being developed and having sustainable manufacturing processes and good yields. Intel actually taped out an internal chip on 10nm, but then "mysteriously" scrapped it. Likely because of bad yields... And that's not even dealing with the demon of quantum tunneling which IMO will likely kill node shrinks even harder. Finally, the other comment is right, Dennard scaling is dead, and thermals have become the primary constraint in chip design. FinFETs have somewhat helped with this, but it's not enough.

sqeaky 10y ago

Only for some interpretations of Moore's law. The strictest readings count transistors in CPUs. But plenty take it as a general prediction in the doubling of performance of hardware. Computing things still get cheaper as more tech gets included. For example, Someone working in AI or video games can drop a $1000 on a Cuda enabled GPU and get more than a 10x more performance increase then they could reasonably get with that $1000 3 years earlier. This is much more than the two doublings some interpretations of Moore's law predicts. Not all performance increases are going to be inside the most complex part.