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Re:A Room-Temperature Superconductor? New Developments by tomxor on Tuesday August 01, 2023 @07:28PM (#36964721)
> CPU heat output is limited by the resistance of the semiconductors.

Super conducting CPUs already exist (at below room temp), and they don't use semiconductors. They don't have an exact transistor equivalent but use digital logic circuits such as Quantum Flux Parametron (QFP) and rapid single flux quantum (RSFQ), which are comprised of Josephson Junctions [0].

I have a limited understanding of this technology, but it appears the only material required to build a Josephson Junction is the super conductor itself. Relying on quantum effects of a gap between two conductors rather than specific material properties. Which explains how the entire digital circuit of a CPU can be (and has been) made super conducting.

So while it is true that CMOS are limited by the resistance of both the conductor interconnects AND the semiconductors. Super conducting circuits only need a conductor... There are of course various other drawbacks, including feature size due to the nature of super conducting materials, but this is offset by huge advantages not only in power efficiency and lower heat generation (only as required by landauer limit), but secondary effects such as being able to drive them almost into the THz arena [1]

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

[1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/superconductor-logic-goes-lowpower

Re:A Room-Temperature Superconductor? New Developments by throwawaylinux on Wednesday August 02, 2023 @01:55AM (#36967429)
> so far demonstrated to 770GHz for one CPU

That's not a CPU, it's a simple circuit. From the article, "Simple superconducting logic circuits have been shown to operate at speeds of up to 770 gigahertz."

Exotic semiconductor transistors can switch that fast, record being over 800GHz I think. Regular transistors of the type in your phone can probably do around 200-300GHz. Not to say there could not be revolutionary designs opened up with superconducting wires or switches, just the switching speed itself doesn't necessarily tell us one way or the other.

Re:A Room-Temperature Superconductor? New Developments by SomeoneFromCA on Wednesday August 02, 2023 @06:40AM (#36969126)
I doubt that regular cellphone transistor can _switch_ at 200Ghz; their GBW might be in that range, but for reliable switching you need clock frequency at most 1/10 of GBW
Re:A Room-Temperature Superconductor? New Developments by throwawaylinux on Wednesday August 02, 2023 @08:19PM (#36979722)
They can, as calculated by switching delays of simple circuits like inverters and NANDs (so simpler than a FO4).

Actually it's probably more like 200 than 300, I haven't seen 3nm models but transistors are still getting faster.

Re:A Room-Temperature Superconductor? New Developments by tomxor on Wednesday August 02, 2023 @09:37AM (#36970709)
Good catch, I misread that. Clock frequency is ultimately dependent on the longest path of propagation, so it does depend on the circuit, or CPU.

I'd be interested to know from any experts whether there is potential for fundamentally higher switching speed in super conducting circuits. As you suggest, they are not necessarily directly indicative of the clock speed of a specific real world circuit or CPU, especially considering super conductors don't even use transistors and need to use different building blocks for equivalent logic... but as a rough indication based on order of magnitude of switching speed would be interesting.

Re:A Room-Temperature Superconductor? New Developments by dumdumchan on Wednesday August 02, 2023 @02:25AM (#36967648)
It might be possible to create a new kind of transistor that turns on/off by changing the superconductivity of the conducting material.