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Re:TSMC and Graphcore Prepare for AI Acceleration on 3nm by shantara on Thursday August 27, 2020 @01:40PM (#24296271)
It's not going to happen any time soon, but I'm looking forward to "computronium" as described in sci-fi - a computing substrate optimized at the molecular level to the point that the performance becomes the function of its volume.
Re:TSMC and Graphcore Prepare for AI Acceleration on 3nm by ivalm on Thursday August 27, 2020 @02:42PM (#24297087)
I wonder if we can go to even higher density. From entropy constraints, computing performance asymptotically scales with surface area [0,1]. The general bound is Bekenstein bound[2]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_thermodynamics

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound

Re:TSMC and Graphcore Prepare for AI Acceleration on 3nm by Filligree on Thursday August 27, 2020 @03:21PM (#24297564)
The bound exists, but it's so many orders of magnitude out that for all practical purposes we don't need to worry about it.

Of course, however, heat dissipation presents similar challenges.

Re:TSMC and Graphcore Prepare for AI Acceleration on 3nm by elcritch on Friday August 28, 2020 @03:33AM (#24302311)
It'll be interesting to see how/if quantum effects will be used in future computing tech (well aside from the whole quantum bangaps in semi-conductors). Effects like thermal super-conductors could enable much higher heat in a given area, perhaps built with quantum dots on semiconductors (IIRC, I thought some researchers tried that).
Re:TSMC and Graphcore Prepare for AI Acceleration on 3nm by lotyrin on Thursday August 27, 2020 @02:42PM (#24297082)
I guess if we hit the edge of feature density, we might start building things out of 3d FPGA type designs of homogeneous modules but because of heat, the capacity of such a design is ultimately going to be limited by its surface area, not its volume, no?
Re:TSMC and Graphcore Prepare for AI Acceleration on 3nm by craftinator on Thursday August 27, 2020 @10:00PM (#24300679)
My CPU is a sphere!