8 ms·

We are still many clicks from physical limits for computation, so it depends on how much money we want to spend.

by api 2y ago

kibwen 2y ago
"Rock's law or Moore's second law, named for Arthur Rock or Gordon Moore, says that the cost of a semiconductor chip fabrication plant doubles every four years. As of 2015, the price had reached about 14 billion US dollars." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_second_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_second_law It seems likely that we're relatively close to the point where it will no longer be economical to push the limits here. It's unlikely that even the entire world working together would want to spend more than $1T for a single fab, which Rock's law suggests is less than 20 years away.
- aurareturn 2y ago
  It seems likely that we're relatively close to the point where it will no longer be economical to push the limits here. It's unlikely that even the entire world working together would want to spend more than $1T for a single fab, which Rock's law suggests is less than 20 years away. Given that Apple at the start of 2019 was worth $600 billion, and now $3.7 trillion 5 short years later, I think a $1 trillion plant in 2045 is not so farfetched. This is especially true if compute requirements for AI continues to grow. Twenty years is a long time. I don't think people in 2025 could have predicted out needs for chips back in 2005.
  - fieldcny 2y ago
    Your are conflating asset price inflation and cost inflation, they are not the same. Apple could lose $2T in market cap next week, the cost of the fab would not be discounted in the same way.
    - aurareturn 2y ago
      Ok, but let's say the scenario is that Apple, Google, Microsoft need to build a chip plant for 0.5nm chips. They need $1 trillion. If each company is worth $20 trillion in 20 years, they can easily raise $1 trillion together by selling some shares or using their shares as leverage or just straight up using their cash flow. I'm simplifying things by ignoring inflation, but you get the point. The bottom line is, if capitalism thinks a $1 trillion fab will produce more than $1 trillion in value, it will happen.
      - kibwen 2y ago
        This appears to be missing the forest for the trees. Which is to say, if Rock's law continues to hold, it doesn't matter if some global consortium can pull together $1T for a new fab; can they pull together $2T four years later? And $4T four years after that? And $8T? $16T? To say that a doubling at this rate is sustainable is to suggest that you more than double the value at each step. At some point this can clearly not be the case, unless you want to posit a world where going from one process node to the next literally doubles the entire productive output of the human race. Absent some unforeseeable technological breakthrough, at some point it has to slow down, either slowly, or drastically, or otherwise stop altogether. And for anyone who's currently middle age or younger, it's currently projected to happen in your lifetime.
- dehrmann 2y ago
  That still means cheaper transistors, right?
- indolering 2y ago
  The Asianometry YouTube analyst stated that the most recent iteration would not have happened had it not been for the AI goldrush. So no, we are not far off.
  - aurareturn 2y ago
    Is there a source to this video? TSMC has always had N2 on its roadmap long before the AI boom.

We are still many clicks from physical limits for computation, so it depends on how much money we want to spend.

by api 2y ago

We are still many clicks from physical limits for computation, so it depends on how much money we want to spend.

"Rock's law or Moore's second law, named for Arthur Rock or Gordon Moore, says that the cost of a semiconductor chip fabrication plant doubles every four years. As of 2015, the price had reached about 14 billion US dollars." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_second_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_second_law It seems likely that we're relatively close to the point where it will no longer be economical to push the limits here. It's unlikely that even the entire world working together would want to spend more than $1T for a single fab, which Rock's law suggests is less than 20 years away.

aurareturn 2y ago
It seems likely that we're relatively close to the point where it will no longer be economical to push the limits here. It's unlikely that even the entire world working together would want to spend more than $1T for a single fab, which Rock's law suggests is less than 20 years away. Given that Apple at the start of 2019 was worth $600 billion, and now $3.7 trillion 5 short years later, I think a $1 trillion plant in 2045 is not so farfetched. This is especially true if compute requirements for AI continues to grow. Twenty years is a long time. I don't think people in 2025 could have predicted out needs for chips back in 2005.
- fieldcny 2y ago
  Your are conflating asset price inflation and cost inflation, they are not the same. Apple could lose $2T in market cap next week, the cost of the fab would not be discounted in the same way.
  - aurareturn 2y ago
    Ok, but let's say the scenario is that Apple, Google, Microsoft need to build a chip plant for 0.5nm chips. They need $1 trillion. If each company is worth $20 trillion in 20 years, they can easily raise $1 trillion together by selling some shares or using their shares as leverage or just straight up using their cash flow. I'm simplifying things by ignoring inflation, but you get the point. The bottom line is, if capitalism thinks a $1 trillion fab will produce more than $1 trillion in value, it will happen.
    - kibwen 2y ago
      This appears to be missing the forest for the trees. Which is to say, if Rock's law continues to hold, it doesn't matter if some global consortium can pull together $1T for a new fab; can they pull together $2T four years later? And $4T four years after that? And $8T? $16T? To say that a doubling at this rate is sustainable is to suggest that you more than double the value at each step. At some point this can clearly not be the case, unless you want to posit a world where going from one process node to the next literally doubles the entire productive output of the human race. Absent some unforeseeable technological breakthrough, at some point it has to slow down, either slowly, or drastically, or otherwise stop altogether. And for anyone who's currently middle age or younger, it's currently projected to happen in your lifetime.
dehrmann 2y ago
That still means cheaper transistors, right?
indolering 2y ago
The Asianometry YouTube analyst stated that the most recent iteration would not have happened had it not been for the AI goldrush. So no, we are not far off.
- aurareturn 2y ago
  Is there a source to this video? TSMC has always had N2 on its roadmap long before the AI boom.