4 ms·

> CPU heat output is limited by the resistance of the semiconductors. Can't superconductor help here?

by nextaccountic 3y ago

Sharlin 3y ago
Superconducting semiconductors? I doubt such a thing is possible.
- weard_beard 3y ago
  Doubt no more. Its called a Josephson junction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephson_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephson_effect
anonymous_sorry 3y ago
It's not obvious to me how it could. Transistors require a semiconductor.
- disintegore 3y ago
  To my knowledge, computers can be designed without any transistors
  - entropicdrifter 3y ago
    They can, but then you're talking about a totally different physical scale of computer. Transistors are useful because we know how to shrink them to a scale of nanometers, in particular we know exactly how to do that with transistors printed with lasers onto silicon chips. We'd have to reboot the CPU manufacturing industry with new base materials/technologies. It's hyper-specialized tech, so it'd probably take over a decade from now to be seen in useful, everyday technologies.
Taniwha 3y ago
Only a little, one big limitation in chips is RC wire delays (the distributed capacitance along a wire needs to be charged/discharged for a signal change to pass) - due to edge effects capacitance doesn't scale with the area of the wire - but R does (inversely so wires have gotten slower) - so as chips have got denser wires have not got faster at the same rate, when I first started building chips we mostly only cared about gate capacitances - now RC delays are a big deal - if R went to 0 RC delays would too - things would get faster
- eternityforest 3y ago
  I'm surprised anyone is even trying that hard to make faster CPUs anymore, now that they're already so fast. You'd think everything would be done by GPUs or dedicated accelerators by now. Especially when so much of the internet is pretty much just serving video files. But yet there's still so much that could be accelerated even with current hardware, but isn't.

> CPU heat output is limited by the resistance of the semiconductors. Can't superconductor help here?

Sharlin 3y ago

Superconducting semiconductors? I doubt such a thing is possible.

weard_beard 3y ago
Doubt no more. Its called a Josephson junction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephson_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephson_effect

anonymous_sorry 3y ago

It's not obvious to me how it could. Transistors require a semiconductor.

disintegore 3y ago
To my knowledge, computers can be designed without any transistors
- entropicdrifter 3y ago
  They can, but then you're talking about a totally different physical scale of computer. Transistors are useful because we know how to shrink them to a scale of nanometers, in particular we know exactly how to do that with transistors printed with lasers onto silicon chips. We'd have to reboot the CPU manufacturing industry with new base materials/technologies. It's hyper-specialized tech, so it'd probably take over a decade from now to be seen in useful, everyday technologies.

Taniwha 3y ago

Only a little, one big limitation in chips is RC wire delays (the distributed capacitance along a wire needs to be charged/discharged for a signal change to pass) - due to edge effects capacitance doesn't scale with the area of the wire - but R does (inversely so wires have gotten slower) - so as chips have got denser wires have not got faster at the same rate, when I first started building chips we mostly only cared about gate capacitances - now RC delays are a big deal - if R went to 0 RC delays would too - things would get faster

eternityforest 3y ago
I'm surprised anyone is even trying that hard to make faster CPUs anymore, now that they're already so fast. You'd think everything would be done by GPUs or dedicated accelerators by now. Especially when so much of the internet is pretty much just serving video files. But yet there's still so much that could be accelerated even with current hardware, but isn't.