This "don't support Linux, but we're cool with it" attitude is very similar to NTL's here in Glasgow, but, better still, the cable guy didn't install anything except the cable. I hadn't even bought the computer when he came and he was happy.
Mandrake did everything for me - I shoved in the disc, went for a coffee, and when I came back there was the Sashdot front page.
This is indeed grand news but there are many obstacles between developing a single molecule transistor and building microprocessors out of same. The difficulty with integrated devices is not whether or not a transistor of a given size will switch, but making the lithographic process of printing the things on the die accurate enough that they can be made that size in the first place. Also last time I looked the transistors on a microprocessor were not suspended between gold electrodes.
Noise may be another issue, since now we must be talking about handfulls of electrons so that a small number of rogue noisy electrons could push the signal across the noise margin and flip the logic.
Alternatively with that size of device we could be designing with high redundancy rather than relying on accuracy - a whole new design paradigm could open up.
Just how much privacy do you expect when you're out and about in public?
As a resident of Glasgow I am delighted to see cameras on every street corner and every road junction. Most of you/. types probably think of Glasgow as a super-scary place with razor-gangs roaming the streets. Well not any more (mostly).
Many people have commented here that "the cameras don't prevent crime", showing a determined effort to neglect their power as a deterrent. Even Glasgow's most neanderthal bampots think twice about mugging Granny McShoogle in Argyle Street when they know they will be forced to watch the action replay on Her Majesty's telly.
We have a program on the telly here (I think it's called "Police, camera, action!"), which shows footage from surveillance cameras of cerebrally challenged criminals performing for our amuesment. Not only is this highly entertaining, it also gets the message across "don't jerk about in a public place unless you have a truly awesome disguise!"
If you want privacy then go somewhere private!
When you're out in public in Glasgow remember, Smile Please!
OK, so just now the resolution is poor. If you consider a good ink jet printer can manage approx 1200 dots per inch, that gives a line width of about 0.8 thou = 20um (more or less confirmed by the article). But even so, you don't need to fully catch up with the current state of the art in conventional silicon processing to start building some awesome things on large plastic sheets. They would have to be fault tolerant structures, but can you imagine a neural network printed out on an A4 sheet? Soon we could have truly intelligent books!
Indeed one would normally expect a chip of this size to suffer yield problems as dictated by Murphy's law (that's the REAL Murphy's law, where fractional yield is given by
Y = ((1 - e**(-AD))/AD)**2, where A is area, D is defect density
rather than the other Murphy's law which affects all our lives).
However there are remedial measures, especially with DRAMs, which can keep Murphy at bay. These largely have to do with redundancy, which is to say one designs the RAM array with many more rows than can actually be addressed, then one detects dead or malfunctioning rows at device test and substitues in the spares. This is a relatively easy thing to do with a nice regular structre like a RAM.
Also one wonders whether with that many polygons squirting past the eyeballs, is it acceptable to ignore a modest number of defects? After all, human vision is reasonably fault tolerant compared to many computing applications.
Even so, I take my hat off to anyone who gets acceptable yield from a device more than 2cm on a side. RESPECT!
This Luke Collins was the main man behind organizing the IP99 conference in Edinburgh in November of that year. IP, as in the IP industry that was killed off during the 90s according to Luke. Shame Luke didn't spot that as it happened. Not so Cool for an "analyst".
Anyway, this is the same old FUD that we see in the open source software arena... "no one to sue" yada yada...
Slashdot Mirror
This "don't support Linux, but we're cool with it" attitude is very similar to NTL's here in Glasgow, but, better still, the cable guy didn't install anything except the cable. I hadn't even bought the computer when he came and he was happy.
Mandrake did everything for me - I shoved in the disc, went for a coffee, and when I came back there was the Sashdot front page.
Never mind. Even if he's filmed in front of the statue with its breasts covered, there will still be a tit in the picture.
This is indeed grand news but there are many obstacles between developing a single molecule transistor and building microprocessors out of same. The difficulty with integrated devices is not whether or not a transistor of a given size will switch, but making the lithographic process of printing the things on the die accurate enough that they can be made that size in the first place. Also last time I looked the transistors on a microprocessor were not suspended between gold electrodes.
Noise may be another issue, since now we must be talking about handfulls of electrons so that a small number of rogue noisy electrons could push the signal across the noise margin and flip the logic.
Alternatively with that size of device we could be designing with high redundancy rather than relying on accuracy - a whole new design paradigm could open up.
Just how much privacy do you expect when you're out and about in public?
/. types probably think of Glasgow as a super-scary place with razor-gangs roaming the streets. Well not any more (mostly).
As a resident of Glasgow I am delighted to see cameras on every street corner and every road junction. Most of you
Many people have commented here that "the cameras don't prevent crime", showing a determined effort to neglect their power as a deterrent. Even Glasgow's most neanderthal bampots think twice about mugging Granny McShoogle in Argyle Street when they know they will be forced to watch the action replay on Her Majesty's telly.
We have a program on the telly here (I think it's called "Police, camera, action!"), which shows footage from surveillance cameras of cerebrally challenged criminals performing for our amuesment. Not only is this highly entertaining, it also gets the message across "don't jerk about in a public place unless you have a truly awesome disguise!"
If you want privacy then go somewhere private!
When you're out in public in Glasgow remember, Smile Please!
OK, so just now the resolution is poor. If you consider a good ink jet printer can manage approx 1200 dots per inch, that gives a line width of about 0.8 thou = 20um (more or less confirmed by the article). But even so, you don't need to fully catch up with the current state of the art in conventional silicon processing to start building some awesome things on large plastic sheets. They would have to be fault tolerant structures, but can you imagine a neural network printed out on an A4 sheet? Soon we could have truly intelligent books!
Robert
Indeed one would normally expect a chip of this size to suffer yield problems as dictated by Murphy's law (that's the REAL Murphy's law, where fractional yield is given by
Y = ((1 - e**(-AD))/AD)**2, where A is area, D is defect density
rather than the other Murphy's law which affects all our lives). However there are remedial measures, especially with DRAMs, which can keep Murphy at bay. These largely have to do with redundancy, which is to say one designs the RAM array with many more rows than can actually be addressed, then one detects dead or malfunctioning rows at device test and substitues in the spares. This is a relatively easy thing to do with a nice regular structre like a RAM.
Also one wonders whether with that many polygons squirting past the eyeballs, is it acceptable to ignore a modest number of defects? After all, human vision is reasonably fault tolerant compared to many computing applications.
Even so, I take my hat off to anyone who gets acceptable yield from a device more than 2cm on a side. RESPECT!
Robert
This Luke Collins was the main man behind organizing the IP99 conference in Edinburgh in November of that year. IP, as in the IP industry that was killed off during the 90s according to Luke. Shame Luke didn't spot that as it happened. Not so Cool for an "analyst". Anyway, this is the same old FUD that we see in the open source software arena... "no one to sue" yada yada...
Robert