4 ms·
If we didn't invent photolithography, we'd still be using computers the size of buildings limited to universities and military installations. Right now no one
by orlp 3y ago
If we didn't invent photolithography, we'd still be using computers the size of buildings limited to universities and military installations.
Right now no one knows how to build a scalable quantum computer. But as soon as we find out the equivalent of lithography for building quantum chips, the progress will come, and it will come quickly and suddenly.
- Mistletoe 3y agoHow do you know there is an equivalent process for quantum chips?
- krastanov 3y agoThere are some equivalents already in existence (spin qubits in CMOS processes), that use the exact same lithography techniques. There are a few other potential alternatives too. All of them suffer from harder engineering challenges than the much "easier" to produce (in small volumes) transmons and trapped ions/atoms/molecules. Thus a plausible future is one in which the first somewhat-useful quantum computers are tens of thousands of qubits in transmon/ion hybrid systems. Then (in that plausible future) the spin qubits in CMOS do catch up, and thanks to their superior manufacturing scalability, they blow past the capabilities of transmons/ions. Not too different from how we had to use vacuum lamps while we figure out how solid state systems can work... Or spinning hard drives before we figured out SDDs. Or maybe none of this would work out and the whole field would be a bust... but you know Clarke's laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
- orlp 3y agoI don't. All I'm saying is that progress can be linear/non-existing until a breakthrough is made that allows scaling. For microchips this was lithography. After such a breakthrough the scaling can (temporarily) be exponential.