FYI: there is still some way to go by shrinking transistors. From
current minimum
of 45nm half-pitch down to probably 16nm. Possibly even 11nm but that is
already
questionable. This will ensure some 5 to 10 more years of Moore's low
being fueled
by transistor shrinking and roughly an order of magnitude growth of
performance per
fixed price. 11nm is probably the hard limit for transistor shrinking
because some
very generic research shows that gates of 5nm or less are really way too
thin to
prevent electrons from tunneling regardless of exact structure and
material of the gate.
See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_nanometer for more details.
Regards
Nikolay
Steve Richfield wrote:
Matt,
A couple of comments your post that I generally agree with...
On 4/19/08, *Matt Mahoney* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
> 90% of which are glial cells and not (technically) neurons at
all, though
> all we care about is whether or not they compute.
My understanding is they carry passive signals.
The last I heard, the ONLY thing that they know for sure is that when
they impale them with an electrode, they only see slowly changing
signals and nothing resembling bistable, spikes, etc. Unknown is
whether they CAN change rapidly - or perhaps rare rapid changes are
their important function?! Theories abound for glial cells, e.g. the
one advanced ~4 years ago in Scientific American, where the author
asserted that they assisted in the programming of synapses.
> Moore's law presumed a relatively unchanging architecture and
rapidly
> advancing fabrication. This has broken down, now that
transistors can easily
> be made SO small that the electrons jump right over the gates.
Sure there
> will be further developments, e.g. multi-layer, but the easy
stuff that
> Moore's law was build on is now GONE.
Actually Moore's law holds pretty well back to about 1900 if you
consider the
computing power of mechanical adding machines. (I believe
Kurzweil studied
this). Moore's law is about the cost of computing, not the size of
transistors.
But, until they figure out something besides transistors to make
computers from, Moore's law has worked in recent decades via
transistor shrinkage, thereby making them cheaper. My point is that
they can't shrink any more, so they aren't going to get any cheaper,
except via slow improvements in methods of manufacturing the same (and
not smaller/faster) parts.
> The proposed architecture that Josh and I have been discussing
could bring
> this to the market for about the same cost as a PC in a couple
of years -
> with adequate funding.
I've heard that before.
NOT using the SAME fabrication equipment! Other proposals involved new
proposed fabrication technologies.
> 2. Some rich benefactor will step forward and make this happen
over the
> loud objections of millions of devoutly religious.
Nobody has that much money. AGI will happen because nobody wants
to work for
somebody else.
While I agree with you regarding AGI, there are several people who
could easily afford the 10K processor, or a knowledge-based Internet,
e.g. Dr. Eliza. These appear to both be necessary as underlying tools
to make AGI really work, and should both return a really quick profit
- like in the first year or two.
Steve Richfield
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