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> TSMC will be top dog for a while, until something happens that causes the market for custom made silicon to collapse. Contrary to many popular technological

> TSMC will be top dog for a while, until something happens that causes the market for custom made silicon to collapse. Contrary to many popular technological opinions, Moore's Law will be dead for a while. We're nearly at our physical limits. When this is ceiling is hit, we'll start seeing numerous more competition enter the fray. This is because the research part will be too large for one company to innovate itself out of (TSMC will be the first to hit the ceiling and the competition will reach the same ceiling in a short time. Together, they may advance our scientific understanding but I think governments would need to get aggressively involved). This is afundamental scientific limitation. There is no emerging research that will overcome this problem (zero theoretical research that can be used for engineering the manufacturing needed for the next advancements). 3D transistors are next but that's not growth at an exponential curve. We're looking at a linear growth future for a while. P.S. I'm 33 and I expect within the next 6-15 years that we'll hit this limit and be at this limit for most of my working career unless we start seeing some seriously massive investment to unearth more advanced physics that we can implement at the pico-level. If you disagree, I'd love to hear what you think that will allow Moore to continue because I've read numerous studies and essentially all have zero tangible implementations.

deleted 6y ago
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vlovich123 6y ago
It will be “Moore” if you talk about “improving performance” (not that the law actually is) as vendors start integrating more and more custom silicon to accelerate various things (eg neural engines, more dsps, etc). So you may still see computers get faster and faster even though it’s not the CPU itself being the one getting faster. That being said cpu design isn’t dead. It’s just more expensive for companies than the traditional “well a new process node will fix it” like the work Apple did with the M1 (which they took advantage of the newer process mode to really put the nail in the coffin).
josephg 6y ago
As a software engineer this feels like heresy, but I can't wait for the day computers stop getting faster. Shoddy software design has been bailed out time and time again by Moore's law. I'm excited by the prospect of a software industry where "tell the client to buy a faster computer" is no longer an acceptable excuse. For example, there's room for a clean, native cross-platform application toolkit that does everything that electron does. But we don't have that. Instead application developers use electron (trading my CPU & RAM for their time). And people get angry at Apple for "only" shipping 16 gigabytes of RAM in their computers rather than angry at lazy app developers. And we don't invest in the tooling we'd need to actually fix the problem. (In this case, Electron but small and native). Another example - as an industry we know how to make fast compilers (eg Go, Jai, V8, LuaJIT, etc). But instead most new languages (rust, pony, zig, etc) are built on top of LLVM. LLVM used to be super fast - but now even in debug mode its sluggish. There's usually nothing wrong with old computers & phones, but we throw them out anyway because software developers buy faster computers then take shortcuts.
- alecco 6y ago
  Bloated software creates demand in hardware. And demand drives supply. When CPU speeds stopped increasing they started adding more cores and created SMT. As Moore's Law is ending they start adding specialized coprocessors (M1). Circling back to the 80s. All these fancy new hardware technologies are not aimed at particle physics, HFT, or fringe high performance shops. They are aimed at consumer grade shitty software and a whole industry who is driven by deadlines and non-technical managers. The change in the software industry has to come from within.
ratsforhorses 6y ago
Dumb question, how about quantum computing, organic or parallel processing... sorry.. complete noob here but enjoying your high flying discussions that conflate so much stuff :-)
potamic 6y ago
That's what they've been saying for the last 10 years or so, but the last decade really saw a huge leap in terms of computing. Machine learning has taken off, big data operations have reached an unprecedented scale and the latest chips from apple have blown everything else out of the water by a mile. Surely there must be a lot of advancement at chip level for all this to happen?
- heimatau 6y ago
  > That's what they've been saying for the last 10 years or so, but the last decade really saw a huge leap in terms of computing. Yes. I acknowledge the nay-sayers and the history of them on this topic But to your point of ML being a solution. Honestly, I have a difficult time seeing how ML will give the manufacturing engineers enough tangible/actionable steps to take to make this happen. We need a new physical framework to be able implement an engineered solution. But maybe it's like eating an elephant (one bite at a time). I will concede this though. IF it were to happen, ML will most likely bring it about. I appreciate you optimism grounded in the technology.
Maven911 6y ago
Moore's law level of advancement has been considered no longer keeping pace since 2010.
ksec 6y ago
> I expect within the next 6-15 years that we'll hit this limit You are talking about fundamental physical limits? Um... No, [1] "At about 26-28.5 minutes of the Jim Keller: Jim notes that transistors could reach 10 atoms by 10 atoms by 10 atoms while avoiding quantum effects. People are also working on harnessing quantum effects." We are so far away from fundamental limits. That even if we assume we could somehow double transistor density every two years, which we dont anymore, there are still at least another 15-20 years before we are close to that limit. And that is not accounting any 3D Transistors. Realistically we already have Roadmap up to 2030 from TSMC. The only limit we will hit is that the node is too expensive and market could no longer afford the premium. Which You could expect to happen within next 10-15 years. [1] https://youtu.be/Nb2tebYAaOA?t=1677 https://youtu.be/Nb2tebYAaOA?t=1677
- heimatau 6y ago
  > Jim Keller I watched a bunch of Jim Keller's interviews and I just fundamentally disagree with ~'we'll innovate our way out of it'.
  - ksec 6y ago
    TSMC has a roadmap for next 10 years. Which is still far from reaching any technical roadblock.

deleted 6y ago

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vlovich123 6y ago

It will be “Moore” if you talk about “improving performance” (not that the law actually is) as vendors start integrating more and more custom silicon to accelerate various things (eg neural engines, more dsps, etc). So you may still see computers get faster and faster even though it’s not the CPU itself being the one getting faster. That being said cpu design isn’t dead. It’s just more expensive for companies than the traditional “well a new process node will fix it” like the work Apple did with the M1 (which they took advantage of the newer process mode to really put the nail in the coffin).

josephg 6y ago

As a software engineer this feels like heresy, but I can't wait for the day computers stop getting faster. Shoddy software design has been bailed out time and time again by Moore's law. I'm excited by the prospect of a software industry where "tell the client to buy a faster computer" is no longer an acceptable excuse. For example, there's room for a clean, native cross-platform application toolkit that does everything that electron does. But we don't have that. Instead application developers use electron (trading my CPU & RAM for their time). And people get angry at Apple for "only" shipping 16 gigabytes of RAM in their computers rather than angry at lazy app developers. And we don't invest in the tooling we'd need to actually fix the problem. (In this case, Electron but small and native). Another example - as an industry we know how to make fast compilers (eg Go, Jai, V8, LuaJIT, etc). But instead most new languages (rust, pony, zig, etc) are built on top of LLVM. LLVM used to be super fast - but now even in debug mode its sluggish. There's usually nothing wrong with old computers & phones, but we throw them out anyway because software developers buy faster computers then take shortcuts.

alecco 6y ago
Bloated software creates demand in hardware. And demand drives supply. When CPU speeds stopped increasing they started adding more cores and created SMT. As Moore's Law is ending they start adding specialized coprocessors (M1). Circling back to the 80s. All these fancy new hardware technologies are not aimed at particle physics, HFT, or fringe high performance shops. They are aimed at consumer grade shitty software and a whole industry who is driven by deadlines and non-technical managers. The change in the software industry has to come from within.

ratsforhorses 6y ago

Dumb question, how about quantum computing, organic or parallel processing... sorry.. complete noob here but enjoying your high flying discussions that conflate so much stuff :-)

potamic 6y ago

That's what they've been saying for the last 10 years or so, but the last decade really saw a huge leap in terms of computing. Machine learning has taken off, big data operations have reached an unprecedented scale and the latest chips from apple have blown everything else out of the water by a mile. Surely there must be a lot of advancement at chip level for all this to happen?

heimatau 6y ago
> That's what they've been saying for the last 10 years or so, but the last decade really saw a huge leap in terms of computing. Yes. I acknowledge the nay-sayers and the history of them on this topic But to your point of ML being a solution. Honestly, I have a difficult time seeing how ML will give the manufacturing engineers enough tangible/actionable steps to take to make this happen. We need a new physical framework to be able implement an engineered solution. But maybe it's like eating an elephant (one bite at a time). I will concede this though. IF it were to happen, ML will most likely bring it about. I appreciate you optimism grounded in the technology.

Maven911 6y ago

Moore's law level of advancement has been considered no longer keeping pace since 2010.

ksec 6y ago

> I expect within the next 6-15 years that we'll hit this limit You are talking about fundamental physical limits? Um... No, [1] "At about 26-28.5 minutes of the Jim Keller: Jim notes that transistors could reach 10 atoms by 10 atoms by 10 atoms while avoiding quantum effects. People are also working on harnessing quantum effects." We are so far away from fundamental limits. That even if we assume we could somehow double transistor density every two years, which we dont anymore, there are still at least another 15-20 years before we are close to that limit. And that is not accounting any 3D Transistors. Realistically we already have Roadmap up to 2030 from TSMC. The only limit we will hit is that the node is too expensive and market could no longer afford the premium. Which You could expect to happen within next 10-15 years. [1] https://youtu.be/Nb2tebYAaOA?t=1677 https://youtu.be/Nb2tebYAaOA?t=1677

heimatau 6y ago
> Jim Keller I watched a bunch of Jim Keller's interviews and I just fundamentally disagree with ~'we'll innovate our way out of it'.
- ksec 6y ago
  TSMC has a roadmap for next 10 years. Which is still far from reaching any technical roadblock.