Quantum future

[Bitman]

Originally Posted by tw

Now that transistors are constructed with as little as three atom thickenesses

Um, I think that's only in the lab. Which means that faster processors are coming. And though those atomic chips will be among the fastest MHz chips possible, smarter chips will still provide more usable speed.

Intel's a bad example to use in this comparison; the original mandate for the Pentium 4 was "more megahurtzes at any cost," but the engineers failed. The 130nm chip contained circuits that just barely worked; when they moved to 90nm, they had to overhaul quite alot, doubling the number of transistors required. That alone burned up all the advantage that 90nm brought.

IBM and AMD are getting good results from 90nm, but the % improvement is less than with 130nm despite the higher cost. Same thing will likely happen with every subsequent generation -- more money, less benefit. So we're definitely sinking, but there's no brick wall.