February 6, 2008: Two Billion Transistors

[monster]

Intel has launched Tukwila, the first chip with over two billion transistors. You won't be seeing this in your home PCs -this quad-core chip will be used in high-end servers. Operating at speeds of up to 2Ghz, this chip is not the fastest kid on the block, but it sure is pretty.

info from BBC, ProductReviews

[Sheldonrs]

Looks like a sattelite view of Manhattan.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Go Monster, we've been all waiting with abated breath.
It's a shame, one pair of leather soles and a wool rug, could fry that sucker.

btw... That BBC link has a great, simple, explanation of a transistor and how they work together on a chip.

[linknoid]

It's interesting to see that chip layout. In most pictures of processors I've seen, you can see different areas, but it's not so obvious what's what.

In this case, the large black areas are most likely cache RAM. All those lines running through it are probably busses to communicate with the rest of the chip.

Also notice the symmetry, you can see each of the 4 cores separated by large areas of RAM, and in the center is the controller which coordinates all the cores... or something like that.

I might also guess (all of this is guesswork) based on the layout that the two cores on the right are more closely tied, as are the two cores on the left, and for the right side and left side to communicate it has to go through the middle.

I'm really curious how accurate my guesses are, but I doubt I'll ever find out.

While 2 billion transistors sounds like a lot, it's not quite as intimidating when you consider that that's only about 31000 transistors wide. Kind of like how you can cross a 2500 square mile area in under an hour, because it's really only 50 miles by 50 miles.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by linknoid

While 2 billion transistors sounds like a lot, it's not quite as intimidating when you consider that that's only about 31000 transistors wide. Kind of like how you can cross a 2500 square mile area in under an hour, because it's really only 50 miles by 50 miles.

Interesting comparison. never looked at it that way.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yes, but the difference comes in the 50 mph roads, instead of the 10 mph ruts they started with, not that long ago.

[monster]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Go Monster, we've been all waiting with abated breath.
It's a shame, one pair of leather soles and a wool rug, could fry that sucker.

btw... That BBC link has a great, simple, explanation of a transistor and how they work together on a chip.

I was also interested to read about Moore's Law:

The chip industry is driven by Moore's Law, originally articulated by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965.

The industry axiom states that the number of transistors it is possible to squeeze in to a chip for a fixed cost doubles every two years.

But mostly I just thought it was pretty

[lumberjim]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Go Monster, we've been all waiting with abated breath.

you and John Madden.

[xoxoxoBruce]

tw refers to Moore's law frequently, in the tech section, but many people avoid that, so this is a more likely place for people to grasp it.

[monster]

Well I've heard of it before too, despite not dipping into the tech forum very often. Apparently, my bachelor's degree is in computer science, but my degree is so old, it was still considered an "interesting statement" then, rather than an "axiom of the industry" My degree is so old, I was one of the first students to get a university email account as standard issue! (1989)

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's an industry thing for engineers and MBAs.

[tw]

Moore's Law is more of an industry benchmark to determine if the industry is still innovating.

What makes that chip possible is high-K dielectric that Intel took a great risk on in Jan 2006. Hafnium (with some other secret materials) made it possible to replace glass (silicon dioxide) with a gate material that does not leak so many electrons. Less leakage means less power consumption and less heat. This risk and its resulting rewards have left AMD in trouble both financially and in competitive products. AMD is suffering from processors that are either too hot or too slow. The buzz word for this new Intel technology is 45 nm transistors. AMD is just getting to 65 nm transistors.

Intel produces annually more transistors than there are stars in the universe.

Meanwhile, the next generation of processing is multicore. But as Sony's Playstation Three demonstrates, we have a serious problem making software that can utilize multicore processors. Where would be a good place to invest? Who can solve this software problem now that Intel has solved the Moore Law challenge using multicore processors?

[nil_orally]

Is it just me that sees a cubist representation of a robotic goatse in this image?

[monster]

Originally Posted by nil_orally

Is it just me that sees a cubist representation of a robotic goatse in this image?

thanks, now I do too

[glatt]

Originally Posted by monster

I was one of the first students to get a university email account as standard issue! (1989)

I was too! I had to ask around, talking to a few professors before I found out who I needed to talk to to get an e-mail account. There were (I think) three terminals on campus I could use to check my e-mail, but only one was in a public location. The others were in physics labs, etc.

I was the only student I knew of with an e-mail account, but I heard from the professors that there were a couple others. This was 1988.