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Moore's Law doesn't explicitly say anything about density: The most popular formulation is of the doubling of the number of transistors on integrated circuits
by VMG 15y ago
Moore's Law doesn't explicitly say anything about density:
The most popular formulation is of the doubling of the number of transistors on integrated circuits every two years.
(WP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law#Other_formulations_and_similar_laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law#Other_formulations_a...)
So the density needs to increase only of the size if the size integrated circuit cannot increase.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- Tuna-Fish 15y agoA more realistic direction is up. Or, 3d integration. When the manufacturing gets mature, this gives a large immediate boost, because in two chips of size n/2 that are bonded together, the maximum distance between any two circuit elements is smaller than in a single chip of size n. After that, it will allow scaling by increasing layers.
- natekupp 15y agoAgreed, but we should note that the fundamental problem is not transistor density or quantum physics, but heat dissipation. Going 3D makes smaller process nodes less important, but efficiently removing heat from a die stack is a real challenge. Sandwich a 130W TDP processor die between two other similar die and the heat dissipated per cm^2 is tremendous.
- geogra4 15y agoIANAEE but is there some way to integrate peltier junctions into a 3D microchip design so that the heat all gets funneled out of the CPU in a regulated and controlled manner?
- natekupp 15y agoNot my area of expertise, but I believe most research today is on microfluidics, introducing microchannels into 3D interconnect layers alongside the TSVs to cool the device. For example, http://deepaksekar.weebly.com/uploads/1/9/8/6/1986457/3d_microchannel_cooling.pdf http://deepaksekar.weebly.com/uploads/1/9/8/6/1986457/3d_mic...