3 ms·

I would personally be content, but I’m thankful for the advances made possible by faster computing, especially in medicine, and I’d like to see more. If we keep

I would personally be content, but I’m thankful for the advances made possible by faster computing, especially in medicine, and I’d like to see more. If we keep advancing computing power, today’s research supercomputers will be tomorrow’s personal computers in the hands of researchers of all income levels all over the world.

jiggawatts 4y ago
The vast majority of hardware devices haven’t even caught up to 14nm, let alone 3nm which is still an experimental node used by a few customers “at risk”. It would take decades at the current pace of progress just for everyone to catch up to the current bleeding edge. I would have retired from IT work by the time that happens! In other words, we’re already at the stage that many people will continue to see non-stop improvements even if 3nm is “the end”. Meanwhile Intel says that their 18A node is looking good and ahead of schedule…
- 1123581321 4y ago
  I think we’re talking past each other. You’re talking about getting the lagging sigmas of the distribution on today’s fastest retail computers, and I’m talking about advancements and discoveries that will require more than our current leading edge retail capabilities. Distribution of our leading capabilities will always be uneven, and will not push out an old computer at a 1:1 rate, so hard to measure via global mean/median retail computer speed in any middle or lower percentile.
  - jiggawatts 4y ago
    I'm agreeing with you in the sense that even if the bleeding edge didn't progress, we will still have the kind of advancements occurring that you would like to see. As a random example, full-frame camera CMOS sensors are made with very old processes (relatively speaking), and have very little "logic" on them. If manufactured with 3nm, they could have something like 2,000 transistors per pixel! That would enable seemingly magical "digital imaging" capabilities, such as infinite dynamic range, perfect digital vibration compensation, ultra-high framerates, etc...

jiggawatts 4y ago

The vast majority of hardware devices haven’t even caught up to 14nm, let alone 3nm which is still an experimental node used by a few customers “at risk”. It would take decades at the current pace of progress just for everyone to catch up to the current bleeding edge. I would have retired from IT work by the time that happens! In other words, we’re already at the stage that many people will continue to see non-stop improvements even if 3nm is “the end”. Meanwhile Intel says that their 18A node is looking good and ahead of schedule…

1123581321 4y ago
I think we’re talking past each other. You’re talking about getting the lagging sigmas of the distribution on today’s fastest retail computers, and I’m talking about advancements and discoveries that will require more than our current leading edge retail capabilities. Distribution of our leading capabilities will always be uneven, and will not push out an old computer at a 1:1 rate, so hard to measure via global mean/median retail computer speed in any middle or lower percentile.
- jiggawatts 4y ago
  I'm agreeing with you in the sense that even if the bleeding edge didn't progress, we will still have the kind of advancements occurring that you would like to see. As a random example, full-frame camera CMOS sensors are made with very old processes (relatively speaking), and have very little "logic" on them. If manufactured with 3nm, they could have something like 2,000 transistors per pixel! That would enable seemingly magical "digital imaging" capabilities, such as infinite dynamic range, perfect digital vibration compensation, ultra-high framerates, etc...