[Beowulf] Moores Law is dying

[Steve Herborn]

As far as "Desktop" machines go there hasn't been an application invented
that needs more.  Because memory & disk storage prices fell programmers got
sloppy & crammed in a lot more, but little to none of it was actually an
application that truly needed more because of purpose, only poor design.
 

                          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 Bruno Coutinho
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 11:28 PM
To: richard.walsh at comcast.net
Cc: beowulf at beowulf.org
Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Moores Law is dying


I think that even if they stop scaling down size of desktop processors due
lack of interest in more performance, 
someone will continue doing it (even at a much slower rate) for HPC market.
No matter how much computing power future processors will have, someone will
invent a application that needs more.




2009/4/8 <richard.walsh at comcast.net>



----- 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 he may be right, but I do not like his historical references which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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