5 ms·

When you say, "On the mother board" - are you suggesting that there will be dedicated interfaces for flash drives? Or that they will actually be manufactured (

When you say, "On the mother board" - are you suggesting that there will be dedicated interfaces for flash drives? Or that they will actually be manufactured (soldered on) to the mother board when it's shipped? Why would Flash Drives be shipped as part of the mother board, but CPUs and Memory aren't? (Unless you are purchasing a Macintosh)

jacquesm 12y ago
Cost and performance are major drivers in computer tech, miniaturization is another. All of these push integration and it's a good bet that what is right now separate will eventually converge, it all converges on a single self contained device (SOC). For RAM/CPU integration the story is a bit different because RAM chips tend to occupy a large amount of space and generate a good bit of heat due to power consumption, but there are right now plenty of systems with RAM and CPU soldered in place. Factors in favor of placing the RAM closer to the CPU are increased speed and reduction in size but I think that the power consumption will remain a problem for the foreseeable future, process differences and the amount of die space required would be another. Technically we already have flash drives on the motherboard, they are just a connector away from being a part of the whole. I think longer term the 'upgrade, repair or discard' factor is a lot lower with solid state memory than with spinning drives, stuff tends to get more compact over time and connectors are a source of trouble. So if the connector is already on the motherboard and the device lasts roughly as long as the mb and isn't a huge cost (flash is cheap compared to RAM) then I think it will make economic sense to at some point drop the connector. Once the mSata connector is out of the way there is no real reason not to widen the bus, thats just a couple of traces. The logic could then be simplified because there is no real reason to simulate a spinning harddrive for a bunch of (slower) memory. And then the next step to incorporate it into a chip further upstream isn't a big one, especially since it is a relatively compact die, there are already plenty of examples of CPUs with on-die flash, no reason why x86 wouldn't follow that trend. The biggest stumbling block on that road would be the fact that there are also different processes used for manufacturing flash than for a cpu so you'd be looking at a single carrier with multiple dies or a flash device directly connected to one of the bridge chips. Cost wise it would make good sense, reliability wise as well. Time will tell.
clarry 12y ago
CPUs have been a part of the motherboard for a long time in laptops, gadgets, and appliances. This trend is increasingly leaking into the desktop space with thin clients and other mini PCs. In fact, all three PCs I've bought in the past six years have CPUs soldered on board..

jacquesm 12y ago

Cost and performance are major drivers in computer tech, miniaturization is another. All of these push integration and it's a good bet that what is right now separate will eventually converge, it all converges on a single self contained device (SOC). For RAM/CPU integration the story is a bit different because RAM chips tend to occupy a large amount of space and generate a good bit of heat due to power consumption, but there are right now plenty of systems with RAM and CPU soldered in place. Factors in favor of placing the RAM closer to the CPU are increased speed and reduction in size but I think that the power consumption will remain a problem for the foreseeable future, process differences and the amount of die space required would be another. Technically we already have flash drives on the motherboard, they are just a connector away from being a part of the whole. I think longer term the 'upgrade, repair or discard' factor is a lot lower with solid state memory than with spinning drives, stuff tends to get more compact over time and connectors are a source of trouble. So if the connector is already on the motherboard and the device lasts roughly as long as the mb and isn't a huge cost (flash is cheap compared to RAM) then I think it will make economic sense to at some point drop the connector. Once the mSata connector is out of the way there is no real reason not to widen the bus, thats just a couple of traces. The logic could then be simplified because there is no real reason to simulate a spinning harddrive for a bunch of (slower) memory. And then the next step to incorporate it into a chip further upstream isn't a big one, especially since it is a relatively compact die, there are already plenty of examples of CPUs with on-die flash, no reason why x86 wouldn't follow that trend. The biggest stumbling block on that road would be the fact that there are also different processes used for manufacturing flash than for a cpu so you'd be looking at a single carrier with multiple dies or a flash device directly connected to one of the bridge chips. Cost wise it would make good sense, reliability wise as well. Time will tell.

clarry 12y ago

CPUs have been a part of the motherboard for a long time in laptops, gadgets, and appliances. This trend is increasingly leaking into the desktop space with thin clients and other mini PCs. In fact, all three PCs I've bought in the past six years have CPUs soldered on board..