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posted by CoolHand on Wednesday April 15 2015, @01:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the need-more-more-moore dept.

IEEE is running a special report on "50 Years of Moore's Law" that considers "the gift that keeps on giving" from different points of view. Chris Mack begins by arguing that nothing about Moore’s Law was inevitable. "Instead, it’s a testament to hard work, human ingenuity, and the incentives of a free market. Moore’s prediction may have started out as a fairly simple observation of a young industry. But over time it became an expectation and self-fulfilling prophecy—an ongoing act of creation by engineers and companies that saw the benefits of Moore’s Law and did their best to keep it going, or else risk falling behind the competition."

Andrew Huang argues that Moore's Law is slowing and will someday stop but the death of Moore's Law will spur innovation. "Someday in the foreseeable future, you will not be able to buy a better computer next year," writes Huang. "Under such a regime, you’ll probably want to purchase things that are more nicely made to begin with. The idea of an “heirloom laptop” may sound preposterous today, but someday we may perceive our computers as cherished and useful looms to hand down to our children, much as some people today regard wristwatches or antique furniture."

Vaclav Smil writes about "Moore's Curse" and argues that there is a dark side to the revolution in electronics for it has had the unintended effect of raising expectations for technical progress. "We are assured that rapid progress will soon bring self-driving electric cars, hypersonic airplanes, individually tailored cancer cures, and instant three-dimensional printing of hearts and kidneys. We are even told it will pave the world’s transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies," writes Smil. "But the doubling time for transistor density is no guide to technical progress generally. Modern life depends on many processes that improve rather slowly, not least the production of food and energy and the transportation of people and goods."

Finally Cyrus Mody writes that it seems clear that Moore’s Law is not a law of nature in any commonly accepted sense but what kind of thing is Moore’s Law? "Moore’s Law is a human construct. As with legislation, though, most of us have little and only indirect say in its construction," writes Mody. "Everyone, both the producers and consumers of microelectronics, takes steps needed to maintain Moore’s Law, yet everyone’s experience is that they are subject to it."

 
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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday April 15 2015, @05:14AM

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday April 15 2015, @05:14AM (#170766) Journal

    When CPUs goes light based, speed can take a 1000x step.

    Light doesn't travel any faster than electricity. It doesn't switch any faster either. Light's principal advantage is the available bandwidth, the amount of data you can transmit over it. But CPUs aren't limited by that so much as they are storage and retrieval times. There comes a point where larger registers are self defeating.

    I'm doubtful that optical computers hold all the promise you expect.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday April 15 2015, @08:11AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday April 15 2015, @08:11AM (#170845) Journal

    http://optalysys.com/ [optalysys.com]

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Wednesday April 15 2015, @08:56AM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday April 15 2015, @08:56AM (#170860) Homepage
    > Light doesn't travel any faster than electricity.

    False. Electricity is still a bulk phenomenon, and its speed is measured by the drift velocity of the electrons which is only a small fraction of the speed of light. Photons are slowed down much less.

    > It doesn't switch any faster either.

    Research labs have demonstrated optical transistors with faster switching frequencies than conventional transistors. OK, they don't have practical chips built out of such tech yet, but that still shows potential.
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  • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday April 15 2015, @10:48AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday April 15 2015, @10:48AM (#170878) Journal
    The big advantage of photons over electrons is the routing. The time it takes an electrical signal to get from one side of a chip to the other is pretty small... if it goes in a straight line. Wires on the surface of the chip can't cross (I think recent chips have two layers to make this a bit simpler). This makes place and route incredibly complex. Photons don't interfere with each other when they cross, so you can have much simpler on-chip wiring.
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