3 ms·
That's an ultra-qualified "yes". Hardware isn't magic. Once you've got a Turing-complete device, software can cover the rest. However, HW implementations of fun
by thechao 8y ago
That's an ultra-qualified "yes". Hardware isn't magic. Once you've got a Turing-complete device, software can cover the rest. However, HW implementations of functionality are 'better' than software in the sense of being either faster or more power-efficient. (Or some trade-off.) Our chips are better because we can throw more customized hardware to side-step (slow; power-hungry) software implementations. We have access to more customized HW because we have more transistors.
If you're asking long-run questions in terms of HW/SW stack performance, I strongly suspect we've got another 3-10 doublings with "just more HW". If any of the post-patterning mechanisms pan out we could, theoretically, get another 15-20 doublings by going all the way down to atoms. After that ... I dunno; sort of the realm of scifi at that point.
- bogomipz 8y agoThanks that all makes good sense. I was curious about "post-pattering mechanisms"? Is this a new area in fab process technology? Might you have some links? Another 15-20 doublings from where we are today is pretty awesome.
- dfrage 8y agoPatterning is the use of multiple masks to get fine features smaller than the wavelength of light you're using where in previous larger feature nodes one mask sufficed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_patterning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_patterning It's very expensive in terms of tooling, since you need a lot more more masks, and production time spend in lithography steps. See this comment in this discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19570724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19570724 for a bit more.