[Beowulf] Moores Law is dying

[Bruno Coutinho]

I think that even if they stop scaling down size of desktop processors due
lack of interest in more performance,
someone will continue doing it (even at a much slower rate) for HPC market.
No matter how much computing power future processors will have, someone will
invent a application that needs more.



2009/4/8 <richard.walsh at comcast.net>

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ken Schuster" <ken at kschuster.org>
> To: beowulf at beowulf.org
> Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2009 2:29:17 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: [Beowulf] Moores Law is dying
>
>   >An IBM researcher says Moore's Law is running out of gas. IBM Fellow
> Carl Anderson, who
> >oversees physical design and tools in its server division, predicted the
> end of continued exponential
> >scaling down of the size and cost of semiconductors:
>
> >"There was exponential growth in the railroad industry in the 1800s; there
> was exponential
> >growth in the automobile industry in the 1930s and 1940s; and there was
> exponential growth
> >in the performance of aircraft until [test pilots reached] the speed of
> sound. But eventually
> >exponential growth always comes to an end," said Anderson.
>
> Mmm ... he may be right, but I do not like his historical references which
> seem
> to conflate engineering and economics.  Better to refer to the improvement
> in
> magnets or something similar.  But, I like the speed of sound reference
> because
> it suggests that there is a Moore's Law barrier to be broken.  There is a
> lot of
> talk about "walls" these days ... the memory wall, the power wall, ... but
> we with
> respect compute power we have a ways to go before we reach the Bremermann
> Limit.
>
> rbw
>
>
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