[Beowulf] Moores Law is dying

[Steve Herborn]

Almost exactly four years ago Gordon Moore himself predicted his own law's
demise. 


  


Moore said: "It can't continue forever. The nature of exponentials is that
you push them out and eventually disaster happens." 


  


 

 

                          Steven A. Herborn

U.S. Naval Academy

Advanced Research Computing

410-293-6480 (Desk)

757-418-0505 (Cell)

 

 

  _____  

From: beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org [mailto:beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org] On
Behalf Of richard.walsh at comcast.net
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 6:11 PM
To: beowulf at beowulf.org
Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Moores Law is dying



----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Schuster" <ken at kschuster.org>
To: beowulf at beowulf.org
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2009 2:29:17 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [Beowulf] Moores Law is dying



>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. 
 
Mmm ... he may be right, but I do not like his historical references which
seem
to conflate engineering and economics.  Better to refer to the improvement
in
magnets or something similar.  But, I like the speed of sound reference
because
it suggests that there is a Moore's Law barrier to be broken.  There is a
lot of
talk about "walls" these days ... the memory wall, the power wall, ... but
we with
respect compute power we have a ways to go before we reach the Bremermann
Limit.
 
rbw

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