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- From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
- Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.lang.misc
- Subject: Re: Goals, Cost, and Flexibility (was Re: "Training" of programmers)
- Message-ID: <BuMGo7.Jr2@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
- Date: 15 Sep 92 13:40:55 GMT
- References: <9225808.14389@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> <BuJnA9.JCA@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <1992Sep15.022940.12771@ksmith.uucp>
- Sender: news@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (USENET News)
- Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
- Lines: 37
-
- In article <1992Sep15.022940.12771@ksmith.uucp> keith@ksmith.uucp (Keith Smith) writes:
- >In article <BuJnA9.JCA@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Rubin Herman) writes:
- >>In article <9225808.14389@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus James HENDERSON) writes:
-
- >[Microcoding Effort vx. CPU speed doubling]
-
- >>This doubling is for the minis and micros, which are finding it possible to
- >>come closer to the speeds of fast mainframes. The speed improvement from
- >>the CRAY 1 to their latest machines is more in using multiple processors,
- >>but this will eventually run into physical limits. The switching time has
- >>only tripled in a dozen years; there may be breakthroughs, but another 20
- >>doublings may very well reach basic physical limits in size, speed, and
- >>number of processors.
-
- >Oh, Oh, Now you've done it. You told some hot shot engineer He can't
- >make the machine run faster. Of course they'll prove you wrong if they
- >throw enough money at it. It wouldn't suprise me in the least to be
- >buying 2 Ghz CPU's in 5 years. The days of anything but
- >"microprocessors" are gone. Takes too long for the 'lectric to come off
- >the chip. All future CPU's will be fabricated on the same silicon.
-
- It would not make me at all unhappy if 2Ghz hardware, at any level were
- produced. It has long been theoretically possible to get at least a
- switching speed of 1Thz (1000 Ghz), and at least 10 years ago, there
- was considerable talk of a superconducting computer using Josephson
- diodes with a switching time of at least 200 Ghz. Even more than 25 years
- ago, there was talk of a 3-dimensional 1-inch cube with 10^11 components.
- Vaporware is easy.
-
- And miniaturization can only go so far; it takes enough molecules to have
- a bi-stable switchable configuration. We have not reached these limits yet,
- but they are in sight.
- --
- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
- Phone: (317)494-6054
- hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)
- {purdue,pur-ee}!pop.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
-