"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.
A generation or two of continued exponential growth will likely continue only
for leading-edge chips such as multicore microprocessors, but more designers
are finding that everyday applications do not require the latest physical
designs, Anderson said.
Consequently, Moore's Law--halving of the dimensions and doubling of speed of
chips every 18 months--will run out of steam very soon. Only a few high-end
chip makers today can even afford the exorbitant cost of next-generation
research and design, much less the fabs to build them.
Anderson cited three next-generation technologies that were still on the fast
track for exponential growth: optical interconnects, 3-D chips and
accelerator-based processing. He predicted that rack-to-rack optical
interconnects will become commonplace, with chip-to-chip optical connections on
the same board coming soon. But Anderson said on-chip optical signaling remains
years away. He also predicted that stacked DRAM dies would be the first to go
3-D.
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