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10GHz Processors and Ultraviolet Lithography
hoyosa writes "This article on zd-net reports that Extreme Ultraviolet LLC has built the first ultraviolet lithography stand for manufacturing processors. Will this make silicone obsolete? "
Some interesting bits in there. Also "Soon" means we won't see actual
chips until oh, say 2005, so don't hold your breath or anything.
No, this does not have anything to do with breast implants, but it WILL make silicon obsolete.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
Comparing Megahertz on processors is like comparing Civics to Corvettes. "My Corvette can do 6000 RPM!" "Oh yeah, my Honda can do 8000 RPM!"
Its just no longer a useful way of measuring.
Just as a 1.x Ghz P-III and a 1.x Ghz P-IV are not the same.
the fastest processors on terms of clock speed may be the p4 and its multigigahertz, but think of all the other processor lines that are MUCH faster at lower clock speeds computationaly wise(powerpc-power4, alpha, itanium...)
Extreme Ultraviolet LLC has built the first ultraviolet lithography stand for manufacturing processors.
Um, we've been using UV for a while now. This company has built the first _Extreme_ UV rig. This is especially obvious as a press release when you realize that they can define EUV as beginning more or less wherever they feel like. The term "EUV" was coined when "X-Rays" got a bad name in lithography circles (it used to be "deep UV", "Soft X-Rays", "Hard X-Rays").
Will this make silicone obsolete?
a) "Silicon".
b) No.
The article says:
"EUV technology is very extendable...and we have demonstrated that it would work down to the 30-nanometer level," Gwyn said.
Barring a new invention, which is always possible, "It should take us to the end of silicon...as we know it today," he said.
In english: The limits of silicon technology will run out before the limits of EUV technology.
They're not ending silicon - they're saying that as long as silicon will be around, photolithography will be around.
Nope.
It is often misquoted as saying something about double speed in 18 months. The CPU-speed is actually somewhat closer to 12 months nowadays (or, so I've read from at least two independent researchers). What's holding the computers back is bus-speed, which doubles approx. every 3 years.
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
Why don't they concentrate on solid state hard drives, or better yet, a fibre optic bus... and bring the price down for them first, that processor at 10 GHz will spend more time waiting for the hard drive than anything.
I'm a power user. I make computer music and videos. 10GHz would be cool...
But still, I yawned when I read this feature.
Fact is, we don't need more GHz.
What we need is more bandwidth (way more bandwidth) and some really innovative interesting software. (I.e. not that cack the Redmond guys have been producing for the last decade.)
We need smart apps, better interfaces and reliability. (The effective GHz count gets cut to shreds every time there's a crash or data loss.)
We need imagination, creative flair and colour...
We don't need Windows, which still thinks it's living in the 80s. And we don't need Linux, which is the kind of long-haired, sandal-wearing geek-fest that gave the 70s a bad name.
(Open Source? Yeah, so what if only terminal nerds care enough to use it? Like I want to know horizontal and vertical scan rates before I can get Xfree to run. Right...)
Bottom line - who cares about 10GHz when most software has been designed by social inadequates who get excited by things that most people think are just plain sad?
We need software that makes life easier, not harder and more aggravating.
When we have that, 10GHz may start to matter again.
Out of curiousity, I compared mpeg play back on both windows2K and BeOS on a dual P3 450 system with 32mb video and 512mb of ram. BeOS was able to play back full screen without skipping. Win2K skipped probably a few frames every minute and was very noticeable. Now I wasn't being very scientific about the test obviously, I just wanted to see if the hardware was capable of full screen (1280 X 1024 res) play back. The answer from a viewing perspective is yes.
Although the older P3 architecture running on 100mhz bus with a single CPU isn't good enough for professional quality video editing (non-linear editing), the newer systems would perform much better. In comparison, a lot of professionals use Mac and Final Cut Pro 3. Having a 10ghz CPU will do very little for non-linear video editing.
The hardware needs better bus architecture and the OS needs to be designed for streaming large amounts of data rapidly, which windows NT kernel currently does not do well. Microsoft has tried to get their systems into film school for editing with poor results. Linux isn't any better in that respect, so the only viable solution (BeOS) for PC video editing is gone.
As more consumers get comfortable with video and music editing, the OS will have to change to meet the demand. If microsoft and intel doesn't, some one else will. This whole mhz battle won't go on forever. At some point, it will cease being the primary factor for consumer PC's.