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My friend just submitted his proposal for PhD research on a new dielectric, Hafnium-oxide. He and I were talking yesterday about the massive knowledge-base at
by physcab 17y ago
My friend just submitted his proposal for PhD research on a new dielectric, Hafnium-oxide.
He and I were talking yesterday about the massive knowledge-base at Intel where they have a very tight grip on semiconductor technology. He was musing that if Intel suddenly went up in flames, our culture would take a step back about 40-50 years.
His point being that these new transistors (32nm and subsequently 28nm gate width) are so incredibly complex that few people understand exactly how they work and all the issues underlying.
Not sure where the industry is headed, but the limit is fast approaching.
- jonknee 17y ago> Not sure where the industry is headed, but the limit is fast approaching. Those types of statements have a short half life in the semiconductor industry.
- biohacker42 17y agoPast performance is not a good indicator of the future, especially when you're bumping into basic limit of atoms.
- physcab 17y agoExactly. I remember when 50nm was a big deal. Now its 28nm? That's absurd. How they make those interconnects is beyond me.
- chaosmachine 17y agos/limit/singularity/
- ajross 17y agoWell, it's not that bad. Intel, it's true, is way ahead on process technology right now (disclosure: my wife is a process engineer there, and I'm unashamedly biased). But let's be honest: AMD, IBM, TSMC et. al. are behind Intel, but they're maybe 1-2 years behind. An Intel catastrophe might be a disaster of lost science, but I think society as a whole could survive if it had to subsist on Phenoms and ARM11s.