

Is Moore's Party Over? - gmodena
http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2011/11/138223-is-moores-party-over/fulltext

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jonnathanson
If we look at Moore's Law as it was originally stated, i.e., w/r/t transistor
density on chips, then yes, it is up against a serious obstacle in the near
future. That obstacle is quantum physics. Below a certain nanometer count,
you're working at truly atomic scale, and Heisenberg effects start to kick in.

Quantum computing may solve this issue, but realistically, probably not at a
pace quick enough to keep Moore's Law operating on track the way it has been
historically. More likely, we'll hit a plateau for awhile and eventually
shatter it. When that happens, computers will be very different machines from
what they are now. The shift from transistor-based computers to quantum
computers will be akin to the shift from vacuum tubes to transistors.

In the meantime, we're probably just going to load up and more and more
parallel processors.

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VMG
Moore's Law doesn't explicitly say anything about density:

 _The most popular formulation is of the doubling of the number of transistors
on integrated circuits every two years._

(WP
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law#Other_formulations_a...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law#Other_formulations_and_similar_laws))

So the density needs to increase only of the size if the size integrated
circuit cannot increase.

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Tuna-Fish
A more realistic direction is _up_. Or, 3d integration. When the manufacturing
gets mature, this gives a large immediate boost, because in two chips of size
n/2 that are bonded together, the maximum distance between any two circuit
elements is smaller than in a single chip of size n. After that, it will allow
scaling by increasing layers.

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natekupp
Agreed, but we should note that the fundamental problem is not transistor
density or quantum physics, but heat dissipation. Going 3D makes smaller
process nodes less important, but efficiently removing heat from a die stack
is a real challenge. Sandwich a 130W TDP processor die between two other
similar die and the heat dissipated per cm^2 is tremendous.

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geogra4
IANAEE but is there some way to integrate peltier junctions into a 3D
microchip design so that the heat all gets funneled out of the CPU in a
regulated and controlled manner?

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natekupp
Not my area of expertise, but I believe most research today is on
microfluidics, introducing microchannels into 3D interconnect layers alongside
the TSVs to cool the device. For example,
[http://deepaksekar.weebly.com/uploads/1/9/8/6/1986457/3d_mic...](http://deepaksekar.weebly.com/uploads/1/9/8/6/1986457/3d_microchannel_cooling.pdf)

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marcf
It is a constant theme to say that Moore's party is over. But there are
massive $$ incentives to maintain it and it is likely to continue in some form
or another -- either in terms of power consumption, multiple cores,
specialized instructions, etc.

I figure that chips will become much more 3D, almost like cubes, instead of
flat rectangles, with just enough freespace to allow for cooling of one sort
or another.

Graphene and other substrates that allow for faster chips at cooler
temperatures is also a good bet for future chip improvements.

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Egregore
I think we can just add the energy consumption to the Moor law and it will
continue to be true for some time.

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z92
...and then it can continue with number of cores per CPU unit.

It all implies chasing a number that indicate current product as better than
last year's. That number [what ever it might mean for each generation] will
continue to follow Moor's law.

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dsr_
It would be interesting to find a benchmark operation that is meaningful and
comparable across any computing platform, so as to be able to take a rough
measurement of performance improvement.

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riffraff
isn't that what SPEC is about?

