3 ms·

L1 Cache is an order of magnitude faster than L2 cache and that's still all on the same chip. That's not "a pretty small part". Energy consumption, heat dissip

L1 Cache is an order of magnitude faster than L2 cache and that's still all on the same chip. That's not "a pretty small part". Energy consumption, heat dissipation, all of this becomes a larger problem for smaller structures. It's just easier and less error prone to build larger structures, yields are higher, so costs are lower for larger structures. I'm certain the tradeoffs will change, but it's all limited by some physical law and while we can sometimes trade one law against the other, we can't currently break them, so tradeoffs will always exist.

micampe 12y ago
I don’t disagree with you one bit, but I find it funny that you say: “we can't currently break them, so tradeoffs will always exist.” :) (That “currently” is just a weasel word, but this being the Internet I understand why you put it there)
- Xylakant 12y ago
  Well, I can rephrase that "I don't expect fundamental laws of nature to change any time soon." But laws that were assumed to be fundamental have been found to be false in the past, so I don't want to rule that out for the future either.
- jjoonathan 12y ago
  It is highly probable that we will discover memory that is better than current memory in every relevant metric (I suspect this is what you think you are claiming). It is highly improbable that this new technology cannot be optimized in any relevant metric by trading off optimality in a different metric (this is what you are actually claiming).
  - micampe 12y ago
    The sentence “I'm certain the tradeoffs will change” implies that both your interpretations are wrong.
tormeh 12y ago
Yeah, but I thought we were talking about RAM vs SSDs. The problem there is not that SSDs are too big physically or that the cable is not short enough.
chongli 12y ago
These caches are currently implemented with SRAM, a technology which uses 6 transistors per bit. Find a different technology (such as memristors) and our entire set of tradeoffs are likely to change. The laws of physics dictate what the ultimate limits of a techology are; they do not dictate which technologies you actually choose to use.
- Xylakant 12y ago
  > The laws of physics dictate what the ultimate limits of a techology are; they do not dictate which technologies you actually choose to use. I never said so, I agree. I'm just stating that I'm confident that in the future, we'll still have tradeoffs. And I'm certain those will include "fast and small, but expensive" vs. "slow and cumbersome, but cheap". We already reached the point where it's a problem that the clock signal on a die spreads so slow that it's a significant problem to increase the clock rate. So we're pushing parallel computing and other solutions, but those come with their own set of trades to make.

micampe 12y ago

I don’t disagree with you one bit, but I find it funny that you say: “we can't currently break them, so tradeoffs will always exist.” :) (That “currently” is just a weasel word, but this being the Internet I understand why you put it there)

Xylakant 12y ago
Well, I can rephrase that "I don't expect fundamental laws of nature to change any time soon." But laws that were assumed to be fundamental have been found to be false in the past, so I don't want to rule that out for the future either.
jjoonathan 12y ago
It is highly probable that we will discover memory that is better than current memory in every relevant metric (I suspect this is what you think you are claiming). It is highly improbable that this new technology cannot be optimized in any relevant metric by trading off optimality in a different metric (this is what you are actually claiming).
- micampe 12y ago
  The sentence “I'm certain the tradeoffs will change” implies that both your interpretations are wrong.

tormeh 12y ago

Yeah, but I thought we were talking about RAM vs SSDs. The problem there is not that SSDs are too big physically or that the cable is not short enough.

chongli 12y ago

These caches are currently implemented with SRAM, a technology which uses 6 transistors per bit. Find a different technology (such as memristors) and our entire set of tradeoffs are likely to change. The laws of physics dictate what the ultimate limits of a techology are; they do not dictate which technologies you actually choose to use.

Xylakant 12y ago
> The laws of physics dictate what the ultimate limits of a techology are; they do not dictate which technologies you actually choose to use. I never said so, I agree. I'm just stating that I'm confident that in the future, we'll still have tradeoffs. And I'm certain those will include "fast and small, but expensive" vs. "slow and cumbersome, but cheap". We already reached the point where it's a problem that the clock signal on a die spreads so slow that it's a significant problem to increase the clock rate. So we're pushing parallel computing and other solutions, but those come with their own set of trades to make.