[HH] The Death of Moore's Law Will Spur Innovation

[Kurt Keville]

The cost of a sub-10 nm node size fab will be so oppressive that not even
Intel will be able to make a financial case for it. Wall Street will pass a
stone when they come to that realization. The IBM slaughter should have
been the wake up call...
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/192430-ibm-dumps-chip-unit-pays-globalfoundries-1-5-billion-to-take-the-business-off-its-hands

On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 5:14 PM, Bill Bogstad <bogstad at pobox.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 9:37 PM, Tom Metro <tmetro+hhacking at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Here's an opinion piece by Andrew "bunnie" Huang (hardware lead at
> > Chumby, and I believe the guy I previously posted about who was building
> > an open hardware laptop design).
> >
> > The Death of Moore's Law Will Spur Innovation
> >
> http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/the-death-of-moores-law-will-spur-innovation
> >...
> >
> > This all sounds great for those rooting for open hardware, but all of
> > this flows from the starting assumption that Moore's Law will run out of
> > gas. The problem with that assumption, even though it is supported by
> > the laws of physics, is that there will be many highly motivated
> > organizations with deep pockets that will seek to redefine the problem.
>
> Actually, I don't think it is that startling at all.   Whether it's
> multi-core, VLIW, or adding more and more specialized instructions
> (SSE, SSE2, SSE3) to optimize particular applications; it seems that
> deep pockets have been attempting to redefine the problem for a long
> time now.   This does basically nothing for legacy apps and frequently
> not that much for most newly written apps either.    I'm aware of only
> two broad areas which might overcome the fast approaching limits of
> physics:
>
> 1. Switch from silicon to some other substance.   I periodically read
> articles about carbon nanotubes or other alternatives.   There seems a
> fair amount of money being poured into this and it's not yet clear
> that these efforts won't bear fruit.   But then again maybe not.
>
> 2. Move more towards 3D features in semiconductors.   Again it seems
> lots of money is being spent here.  My impression is that it can be
> made to work, but it is likely to significantly increase manufacturing
> costs.   If you REALLY need single package improvements in density
> this will be doable but it seems like it will be hard to justify for
> mass market products.
>
> Another issue which neither of you mention is the increasing cost of
> the plants where these chips are produced.   As I understand it, even
> Intel finds it expensive to keep pushing for the next incremental
> shrink in chip technology.   If integrated design/manufacturing firms
> become just too risky (what if a chip design is late? do you let your
> multi-billion dollar factory sit idle?), then I would expect to see
> even more contract chip manufacturing plants to appear.  This may make
> it possible for smaller chip design firms to get access to current
> manufacturing technology.   If that happens, the next step would be
> for design "building blocks" to either be made available by the chip
> foundries or as open designs.   Smaller chip design firms will also
> probably find it easier to use standardized interfaces/design
> components as much as possible in order to reduce their cost/time to
> market.   This seems to me to be another influence that will push the
> industry in the direction that Andrew Huang suggests.
>
> Bill Bogstad
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