4 ms·

We make ICs and target 20 year lifespan. A lot of cost and over-design goes into achieving that MTBF, especially if a device only had a typical usable lifespan

We make ICs and target 20 year lifespan. A lot of cost and over-design goes into achieving that MTBF, especially if a device only had a typical usable lifespan much shorter. ECU should be 30 years, but a GPU, probably not. Will you be gaming on a 30 year old card?

achairapart 6y ago
Probably not, but for history purposes it would be a pity.
simion314 6y ago
It would suck if you own a special console/electronic device and it just expires. The number of people affected is not large but still it will suck. Also this days TVs and other electronics have some computer inside and this "expiration" would affect second hand market and increase the e-wate more.
- isoprophlex 6y ago
  Agree completely, but we are already entering a market of rapidly expiring products and 'e waste as business model' See: DRM'ed water filters, iot devices dying when their companies shut down, mountains of unusable electric scooters left over when a startup folds.
  - swinglock 6y ago
    This is the time ramp up waste, we must exit that market instead, by law if necessary.
- jack_pp 6y ago
  Doesn't it expire from use? If you care that much about preserving history, buy one and don't use it for 30 years LE: although considering most stuff built today wouldn't work without an internet connection the problem isn't just hardware expiring
  - simion314 6y ago
    I seen some youtube videos where people are buying old consoles, clean them up and maybe replace some parts and they can use them. My origin is from a poor family and my first 4 computers were old second hand ones - this is a double benefit, the computers/laptops did not become e-waste and a poor family/person can access expensive tech that in my case helped me find a job and finally afford buying new stuff for me and my child. The big issue is when the mini computer inside your device is a small part of the device, like for example my parents TV is now showing all the time a red message in the corner because the software fails to validate something, the solution appears to be to have it re-flashed with an updated firware to remove those checks or replace the shitty un-essential component that is not used at all. So I am afraid that in future you will need to replace/repair your TV/fridge/car because a chip like the memory in it is one of the ones that "expire" (we had the case where Tesla cars SSD would get bad because of extreme logging)
    - jack_pp 6y ago
      It's great that you can repair old consoles / tech but I seriously doubt they were designed with durability in mind, and by that I mean I doubt they sacrificed performance for repairability. I belive that if they could make it 10% faster knowing it will break in 5 years instead of 10 they would have made it faster
      - simion314 6y ago
        Yes, I agree. So they used existing components/manufacturing so they inherited most of the time durability. Now imagine a chip that can consume itself, a infinite loop bug or some logging going wrong or maybe intentional sabotage can destroy your stuff with an update.
Causality1 6y ago
Ask that to every person who still likes to occasionally plug in their NES for a round of Mario Brothers or dust off their Game Boy.
- tails4e 6y ago
  They are still OK, IC aging only occurs when it's active. So a chip designed for 10 years expires after 10 years of use. If you occasionally plug in that old console, it will be fine. It's likely other things will expire first in the system, like power supply, or something mechanical if there a DVD drive, etc.
legulere 6y ago
Will a GPU in 30 years be that much faster than GPUs today? CPUs are already starting to plateau out.
- rubber_duck 6y ago
  Rendering is a textbook example of implicit parallelism so scaling with transistor count will keep going even if CPU single core performance and synchronisation bottlenecks slows down progress
sbierwagen 6y ago
You won't use a 2020 card for 30 years, but what about a 2100 card? By that point, computing hardware will be a fully matured technology, and you certainly won't be seeing the yearly performance increases we've seen for the last fifty years. In a world with no improvement, you can expect customer preferences will move to durability.

achairapart 6y ago

Probably not, but for history purposes it would be a pity.

simion314 6y ago

It would suck if you own a special console/electronic device and it just expires. The number of people affected is not large but still it will suck. Also this days TVs and other electronics have some computer inside and this "expiration" would affect second hand market and increase the e-wate more.

isoprophlex 6y ago
Agree completely, but we are already entering a market of rapidly expiring products and 'e waste as business model' See: DRM'ed water filters, iot devices dying when their companies shut down, mountains of unusable electric scooters left over when a startup folds.
- swinglock 6y ago
  This is the time ramp up waste, we must exit that market instead, by law if necessary.
jack_pp 6y ago
Doesn't it expire from use? If you care that much about preserving history, buy one and don't use it for 30 years LE: although considering most stuff built today wouldn't work without an internet connection the problem isn't just hardware expiring
- simion314 6y ago
  I seen some youtube videos where people are buying old consoles, clean them up and maybe replace some parts and they can use them. My origin is from a poor family and my first 4 computers were old second hand ones - this is a double benefit, the computers/laptops did not become e-waste and a poor family/person can access expensive tech that in my case helped me find a job and finally afford buying new stuff for me and my child. The big issue is when the mini computer inside your device is a small part of the device, like for example my parents TV is now showing all the time a red message in the corner because the software fails to validate something, the solution appears to be to have it re-flashed with an updated firware to remove those checks or replace the shitty un-essential component that is not used at all. So I am afraid that in future you will need to replace/repair your TV/fridge/car because a chip like the memory in it is one of the ones that "expire" (we had the case where Tesla cars SSD would get bad because of extreme logging)
  - jack_pp 6y ago
    It's great that you can repair old consoles / tech but I seriously doubt they were designed with durability in mind, and by that I mean I doubt they sacrificed performance for repairability. I belive that if they could make it 10% faster knowing it will break in 5 years instead of 10 they would have made it faster
    - simion314 6y ago
      Yes, I agree. So they used existing components/manufacturing so they inherited most of the time durability. Now imagine a chip that can consume itself, a infinite loop bug or some logging going wrong or maybe intentional sabotage can destroy your stuff with an update.

Causality1 6y ago

Ask that to every person who still likes to occasionally plug in their NES for a round of Mario Brothers or dust off their Game Boy.

tails4e 6y ago
They are still OK, IC aging only occurs when it's active. So a chip designed for 10 years expires after 10 years of use. If you occasionally plug in that old console, it will be fine. It's likely other things will expire first in the system, like power supply, or something mechanical if there a DVD drive, etc.

legulere 6y ago

Will a GPU in 30 years be that much faster than GPUs today? CPUs are already starting to plateau out.

rubber_duck 6y ago
Rendering is a textbook example of implicit parallelism so scaling with transistor count will keep going even if CPU single core performance and synchronisation bottlenecks slows down progress

sbierwagen 6y ago

You won't use a 2020 card for 30 years, but what about a 2100 card? By that point, computing hardware will be a fully matured technology, and you certainly won't be seeing the yearly performance increases we've seen for the last fifty years. In a world with no improvement, you can expect customer preferences will move to durability.