Are Cheap Laptops a Roadblock for Moore's Law?

Timothy Harrington writes "Cnet.co.uk wonders if the $100 laptop could spell the end of Moore's Law: 'Moore's law is great for making tech faster, and for making slower, existing tech cheaper, but when consumers realize their personal lust for faster hardware makes almost zero financial sense, and hurts the environment with greater demands for power, will they start to demand cheaper, more efficient 'third-world' computers that are just as effective?" Will ridiculously cheap laptops wean consumers off ridiculously fast components?"

Comments

I doubt it...

[Nimsoft]

I really don't think this is going to make a huge impact. Companies will always want to sell their latest, greatest hardware, and there will always be plenty of people ready to spend their money on the next best thing, that's how the technology industry works!

Re:I doubt it...

[Nos.]

True, but I think something like the $100 computer will have more of an effect in the laptop market as opposed to the desktop market. Generally (and a lot of /. ers are the exception) laptops are bought more for portability than for raw power. Whereas the desktop market has the more serious gamers as well as software developers that want more power. Granted, there are exceptions on both sides, but I would think the laptop market would be affected more by cheap hardware.

Re:I doubt it...

[Stewie241]

Also consider that SUVs and big expensive cars are a status symbol and give the driver a feeling of power.

There may at one time have been a feeling of power of being able to render the downloaded web page quicker or have a more responsive gui, but there isn't the same benefit with today's highest end models over a lower end model.

I remember drooling over the departments at work when they got new computers and ours hadn't arrived yet. Now, there isn't much that I need to go faster. Top of the line computers are no longer a status symbol because a bigger computer isn't that impressive, and you can't tell what kind of processor a computer has by looking at the outside, and nowadays, even by using it.

Of course it won't halt moore's law

[moderatorrater]

Moore's Law dictates that in 18 months, you should be able to get a significantly more powerful laptop for $100. Even with ridiculously cheap computers out there, there will always be a core that wants power.

Besides, if cost were the biggest issue in computing, than Linux would be the ubiquitous desktop.

Re:Of course it won't halt moore's law

[MoxFulder]

Exactly. What a frickin' retarded argument... since when has the low end of computing actually dragged down the high end?

We may have unprecedented demand for low-power 200 MHz ARM processors these days, but we also have unprecedented demand for quad-core 2 GHz beasts in 1U rack-mount servers, so we can stuff more and more of them into vast underground data centers. Moore's law applies equally to the low end and the high end. Today we can put a powerful computer in a $500 iPhone, maybe tomorrow we can put it in a $50 iWatch. There's absolutely no economic reason for Moore's Law not to continue unabated.

Re:Of course it won't halt moore's law

[Sandbags]

Please quote the law properly: http://foldoc.org/?query=Moore's+Law

It's every 24 months, not 18, and it has nothing to do with power or speed. CPU speed has increased at significantly higher pace than Moore's law. Moore's law views the number of transistor junctions in an IC, nothing more. The size, power consumption, MIPS, and other values have had significantly different curves, most at higher paces than the law, and not in direct comparison to transistor count. CPU power (in watts) over all is relatively the same as where it started in the 80s, and is currently reducing even as Moore's law increases. http://www.eng.tulane.edu/Tef/Slides/Tulane-Moore' s%20Law%20Sept02.ppt

Also, Moore's law clearly states that the number of transistors doubles "as costs remain the same." This means if we can have a $100 laptop today, in 2 years it will still cost $100 (or more accurately the portion of the $100 cost represented by the CPU will be the same), but the CPU will have 2X the number of transistors. It may be faster, maybe not. It may use more or less wattage. This is determined by transistor spacing, impedance layers (SoI, etc), volts, and clock frequency, not Moore's law. The articles premise is simply a logical fallacy.

One more thing: Moore's law does not apply to EVERY processor, only the leading generation vs. the predecessor. There's no reason to believe the notebook will use the current processor generation, and in fact likely it will not. This has no impact at all on the validity of the law as other processors will exist that follow the law. They may simply decide that instead of the build cost for the notebook being $90 to sell at $100, that they'll use previous generation hardware using more modern manufacturing processes, and reduce the build cost to $60-80, and still likely make it faster or better somehow in the process.

Were I a betting man, I'd put money on the $100 laptop not only having a faster chip with more transistors, but that it will use less watts, have a higher resolution display, faster or stronger wireless antenna, more storage, and more ports when we look at it in 2 years. Of course, part of the design of the machine, and it's low cost, is the intent of model line longevity. We don't expect to have a new one of these every 2-4 months like the retail PC industry does. Likely, this will be re-engineered at most once per year.

Re:Of course it won't halt moore's law

[timeOday]

There will always be businesses who need the fastest, highest powered hardware available.

Actually, I think things can change and have changed. From the late 80s to about 2000, the average computer price remained seemed to remain pretty steady at around $2500. Then, about the time computers got "fast enough" (about 400 MHz), the average selling price of computers plummeted. In addition to average price, people are also upgrading less often now. This shows there is not constant perpetual demand for the latest and greatest. How much more advanced would computers be now if it were still common to drop $700 on the CPU alone? There's no way to know, but certainly more advanced than they are today. Of course we still call the best of whatever is available "high end" by definition, but that doesn't mean it's high end compared to what would now be available if money were still flowing like it did.

No, They are NOT

[queenb**ch]

They'll just become faster at the same price OR the software people want to use simply won't operate. Look at Vista...can you imagine trying to run that on a PII or PIII CPU? You'd want to slit your wrists out of sheer boredom due to having to wait on everything to load.

2 cents,

QueenB.

Re:No, They are NOT

[Red Flayer]

Look at Vista...can you imagine trying to run that on a PII or PIII CPU? You'd want to slit your wrists out of sheer boredom due to having to wait on everything to load.

I want to slit my wrists when I imagine trying to run Vista regardless of CPU.

Not fast enough yet...

[langelgjm]

Personally, until encoding video is as fast as encoding audio is now, I for one welcome faster machines.

somebody doesn't understand Moore's Law

[rainmayun]

Moore's Law says nothing about speed. It does say something about the density of transistors on an integrated circuit. How your engineers choose to take advantage of that is up to your business drivers.

Here's a thought - maybe those $100 laptops become cheaper, or more capable over time.

Re:somebody doesn't understand Moore's Law

[edittard]

Moore's Law says nothing about speed.

... and even if it did, it isn't what makes it increase as TFS implies.

Moore's Law is the *enabler* for cheap laptops

[Eco-Mono]

Now, I'm not so sure that the writer of the article actually knows what Moore's Law is. It doesn't have to do with CPU speed; it has to do with how many transistors we can cram onto a silicon wafer. And as that compression increases, the same amount of CPU power gets smaller and more energy-efficient. In other words, we aren't looking at the "end of Moore's Law"... we're looking at that progression being put to use in the way the market wants - that is, making computers cheaper and smaller, since they're already as fast as we need them to be.

No

[An Ominous Coward]

Given that Moore's Law is that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 months, no. Even if the gigahertz / number of cores war stops for laptops, there's lots of components that can be put on chip. But apparently it's too much to ask from a rag like CNet to get their basic definitions correct.

This isn't thermodynamics

[Chairboy]

It's not a LAW-law, it was a prediction. It was an observation coupled with smart insight into the nature of the semi-conductor business, and deviations aren't news, the fact that his prediction has so consistently worked over the past decades is the real story.

Will it hold up forever? Probably not, it could speed up or slow down by an order of magnitude as semi-conductor technology is replaced by The Next Big Thing (Optics? Quantum? Duotronics?), and our measurement criteria might have to change with it.

So again, the real story is that Moore's observation has held up so spectacularly so long. Lulls in performance increases are natural. But how does it plot over time?

External pressures

[fantomas]

People may want to buy more ecologically sound, low powered, cheaper machines, but they are subject to external pressures.

Apart from the small percentage of hackers/enthusiasts who play with computers because they like computers, the majority of people use computers to achieve goals - be it to write their work documents, play games, edit photos etc. They will buy the machines that can run the software to do these jobs.

I can't see the big software players reducing the power requirements of their software as it upgrades. Microsoft Office 2015, Photoshop v.27, and World of Warcraft 2015 are going to need more rather than less power and people will be forced to buy more powerful machines.

I doubt it

[_xeno_]

My cellphone is now more powerful than the first computer I used. It supports up to 1GB of removable storage in about the smallest form factor I've ever seen (micro SD). It's built-in camera is as good as the first digital camera that I owned.

In other words, yes, people may start demanding smaller and more powerful devices - but so what? It just means that instead of speed doubling, power use might start decreasing, storage density might increase, who knows what. We're using computers for purposes I never would have dreamed of when ten years ago. I have a computer under my TV that records shows - I never saw that coming until it did.

Computers will continue to evolve. The laptop and desktop might start to fade out, but new devices will take their place.

Re:Gamers will always make Moore's Law Relevant

[trolltalk.com]

And we all need suckers like him to buy the latest overpriced, overhyped hardware, so that we can wait a couple of years and buy the next generation for 1/10 the cost.

The "early adopters" get what they want - which is mostly "I want it now!" , and the rest of us get what we want, which is improved hardware cheaper by waiting a bit.

Look at the people who paid $500 for a 15" LCD screen with crap specs, when you can now buy a 20" for $150.00.

Same thing with video cards - they paid $500 for a card with a quarter-gig of ram - those cards are now under $100.00

Let them keep spending - the benefits trickle down to the rest of us because we're patient.

Moore's Law Expanded

[Anti_Climax]

Several comments are stating that Moore's Law is about transistor density not processor speed. This is correct but I feel I should add something very important.

"The number of transistors on an integrated circuit for minimum component cost doubles every 24 months"

Weather you keep the original 2 years or drop to 18 months, we're specifically referencing low cost components, which would map directly to the hardware they're trying to put in a $100 laptop.

So in short, no, a cheap laptop just helps to confirm Moore's Law, not derail it.

Consumers

[s31523]

The $100 laptop is not geared toward anyone that is reading slashdot. It is for poor countries, or even poor inner city areas, with people that have no access to computers or the internet. Demand for cutting edge speed and technology won't subside at all. Not to mention, even the poor kids in third world countries will outgrow their $100 laptop in a month anyway and will want the coolest gadget out there... FUD. Pure FUD.

Re:No...

[MontyApollo]

640K...

The 286 processor was called a "supercomputer on the desktop", way too much power than what the average user will ever need.

It's not just the alienware crowd, once your average user gets a taste of what can be done with more power they will jump on the bandwagon too.

As somebody here mentioned in another post, video encoding and editing requires quite a bit of power, and this may become more mainstream with cheaper and cheaper camcorders. The personal computer is constantly expanding beyond the glorified word processor and their will always be new applications that come along that require more power, and it is kind of short sighted to believe that future apps will be nothing more than improved versions of only what exists today.

Re:No...

[Shotgun]

Unfortunately, most people are first and foremost just consumers. They don't want to edit video. They just want to watch it.

Very few people want to actually *DO* anything anymore, other than be entertained.

Re:What a pointless article.

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's not really a 'law' in the scientific sense, it's a prediction. I wish people would:

1. Stop calling it 'Moore's Law'.
2. Stop panicking when a good reason for the 'law' to be invalidated shows up.

Sheesh, who really gives a shit anyway. Moore's Law is not driving the processor industry, there are plenty of other incentives for continual product improvement.

Re:Moore's Law in Dynamic Equilibrium?

[shmlco]

The whole argument is stupid. Really cheap computers are powered by chips that would have been top-of-the-line four or five years ago. It's the advancement of the power curve that made the chips powering those systems cheap--and possible--in the first place.

Re:It's about the software.

[billcopc]

Right... so what does Vista do for YOU, better than XP did five years ago ?

I remember a long long time ago, I was surfing on a puny little 96mb 200mhz Pentium. The World Wide Web may have changed a bit since then, but it's still just a bunch of text with a few pictures mixed in. A quad-core 3.2ghz monster doesn't do it 64 times faster today, instead we throw more garbage at it to "make use" of the extra power.

The problem with Moore's law is simple: computers may evolve quickly, but humans sure don't. We're as dumb as we were ten years ago. Life on earth is pretty much the same as it was before, it just costs more money now. We consume more and more, and produce less and less. Why aren't these "thinking machines" doing our work for us ? Productivity is supposed to have increased, but what have we done with the excess ?

If anything, cheap laptops are a roadblock to progress. We're right on track to becoming telecom slaves, just the way they want us.

No.

[chrome]

Real news a bit slow today?