Yeah, I was at aldershot, but I knew a lot of people from Nelson (some of which are here at Queen's). You might have even had my mom as your teacher at Tuck
Yeah, I went to HS with him. Brilliant guy, congrats Ondrej! (ask him about when he built circuitry to play pong on an old analog oscilloscope. It was a scary rats nest of wires, but worked )
I'm not sure if the interconnect lengths have that large of an effect compared to the gate capacitance on the MOSFET's. By decreasing the area of the gate on the transistor, they can up the clock speed since the capacitance goes down.
Also, by lowering Vdd, you actually slow the chip down. While it helps with the power produced in the chip, the electron mobility decreases in the semiconductor material. This decreases the current flow and hence charging time on the gates. (correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is how it works).
I think the main problem is balancing the transistor sizing and the heat density in the chip. As you said - smaller transistor, higher clock speed. But as the density goes up, so does the heat developed which necessitates lowering Vdd.
Okay, a few days ago I made a (un political) jab at americans. I'm a Canadian (who personally has nothing against Americans). I'm amazed at the number of people (not you personally) who resort to either sexual or political preference jokes to take someone down. If you can come up with a reasonalbe or logically based arguement to dis-agree with someone, why don't you give up? I mean, all that's left if basically calling someone names...
True, I was just trying to provide a counterpoint to all the anti-Canada sentiment in this discussion. I just don't see why when someone mentions a tech-convention in Canada, people respond will all this name calling. I mean, it's not like we're some backward snow-bound country. Hey, my hometown might be getting a chip-fab plant.
I made the same mistake. My first reaction was "holy ****, a $47 billion backrub ?!?" Geez if the world would just use SI we wouldn't have lost the climate orbitor.
I'm guessing that they'd setup some system with the hydro company. I mean, they could remove filtering over a certain communication frequency range. For my 4th year elec. proj, we're doing something similar (although not nearly the voltage level!). We're going to try to setup communication using frequency filtering over 120VAC house lines. The problems will likely include the stepdown transformer from the power grid. We'll likely setup some sort of freq. block to avoid feeding stuff out of the house. I think that X10 does something similar and I heard rumours of IBM having something similar. If the systems got really popular you'd have to block signals from feeding out of the house into someone elses. Anyway, with ours we're hoping to setup some generic remote switching/status boards with some cheap front-end software. I'm assuming it wouldn't be too hard to allow control from the internet (hey there's always telnet:->, not everything is the web!).
Now with their system I really wonder how they send any info at that rate over the power lines. I mean, the capacitance over long stretches of power line must be crazy. Could you approach it with FSK (frequency shift keying) at high-freq? I'm assuming that the noise and varying properties of the hydro lines would knock out any idea of phase-encoding (someone previously mentioned the idea of signal 'smearing' due to propagation effects). To avoid worring about amplitude drops, FSK is probably the better way to go. Unfortunately at high freq., any capacitance would act as a straight short, unless you balance it out by adding inductance to the lines. (Does anyone know (roughly) Z-angle of the hydro lines?) I know modems used to use QSM(? I think), which used amplitude + phase encoding. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this works!
Isn't this too much of a commercial advertisement? I agree with the views about asynchronous logic being the next step as we push clock rates higher and higher, but I just think that perhaps a smaller message with a "we have a solution" might be a little more appropriate.
I have to agree with this. I've developed a keen interest in this dicussion because of what I went through. From grd. 6 - 11 was a really bad period. Sure, social awkwardness played a large part, but it is an avalanche situation. How do you develop social skills when you are the outcast? By developing a few good friendships and trying to keep my head held high I made it through. I think a big problem can start in the early years. When parents tell you to "Just ignore the bullies, they'll stop", it can start you on the wrong road. I think it just makes it easier for people to pick on you and you don't develop any social defenses. I always walked away from a fight, with taunts and jeers following close behind, but the situation cascaded. When you walk away once, it's much easier the second time. Of course I thought about fighting back, but I tried to keep the moral high ground since at that age your parents are (pretty much) always right. There is a certain silver lining in this. I think from being in that situation I developed a sense of pathos/sympathy for others which I think tempers how I handle situations. Having been in that situation I find it hard to treat people in a negative way. It would probably make me a bad manager, since I'd find it really hard to fire anyone! Things have gotten a lot better, but the memories will always remain. Hopefully people will wise up to what's going on in schools. Reducing it at an early age would be a lot easier, but I think no matter how much we try it will always be a problem. BTW, when are schools going to realize that academics CAN be more important than sports? I'm physically active, and I don't see how schools justify cutting classes (in these days of budget cuts) but keeping sports teams open citing benefits like leadership and teamwork. Those can be learned outside of school, but the academics are very hard to learn by yourself. Just my $0.02.
I could see caffine and nicotine being the top ones on a poll. There's quite a bit of drug use at university, but I can't see too many people continuing after. I mean, why risk years of work to get a degree that would be worthless with a criminal record?
Slashdot Mirror
There once was a poster name AC
This kinda rhymes with hack
Racist poetry he'd write
For which we all wish him blight
I hope someone give him a smack.
Nope, I guess some people don't realize there's delays on the net. (BTW, first post from Ontario I hope )
Yeah, I was at aldershot, but I knew a lot of people from Nelson (some of which are here at Queen's). You might have even had my mom as your teacher at Tuck
Yeah, I went to HS with him. Brilliant guy, congrats Ondrej! (ask him about when he built circuitry to play pong on an old analog oscilloscope. It was a scary rats nest of wires, but worked )
Also, by lowering Vdd, you actually slow the chip down. While it helps with the power produced in the chip, the electron mobility decreases in the semiconductor material. This decreases the current flow and hence charging time on the gates. (correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is how it works).
I think the main problem is balancing the transistor sizing and the heat density in the chip. As you said - smaller transistor, higher clock speed. But as the density goes up, so does the heat developed which necessitates lowering Vdd.
Okay, a few days ago I made a (un political) jab at americans. I'm a Canadian (who personally has nothing against Americans). I'm amazed at the number of people (not you personally) who resort to either sexual or political preference jokes to take someone down. If you can come up with a reasonalbe or logically based arguement to dis-agree with someone, why don't you give up? I mean, all that's left if basically calling someone names...
True, I was just trying to provide a counterpoint to all the anti-Canada sentiment in this discussion. I just don't see why when someone mentions a tech-convention in Canada, people respond will all this name calling. I mean, it's not like we're some backward snow-bound country. Hey, my hometown might be getting a chip-fab plant.
Little bit of trivia. What's the only country to successfully invade the USA, and burn your capital to the ground? Give up? Look north
I made the same mistake. My first reaction was "holy ****, a $47 billion backrub ?!?" Geez if the world would just use SI we wouldn't have lost the climate orbitor.
I'm guessing that they'd setup some system with the hydro company. I mean, they could remove filtering over a certain communication frequency range. :->, not everything is the web!).
For my 4th year elec. proj, we're doing something similar (although not nearly the voltage level!). We're going to try to setup communication using frequency filtering over 120VAC house lines. The problems will likely include the stepdown transformer from the power grid. We'll likely setup some sort of freq. block to avoid feeding stuff out of the house. I think that X10 does something similar and I heard rumours of IBM having something similar. If the systems got really popular you'd have to block signals from feeding out of the house into someone elses.
Anyway, with ours we're hoping to setup some generic remote switching/status boards with some cheap front-end software. I'm assuming it wouldn't be too hard to allow control from the internet (hey there's always telnet
Now with their system I really wonder how they send any info at that rate over the power lines. I mean, the capacitance over long stretches of power line must be crazy. Could you approach it with FSK (frequency shift keying) at high-freq? I'm assuming that the noise and varying properties of the hydro lines would knock out any idea of phase-encoding (someone previously mentioned the idea of signal 'smearing' due to propagation effects). To avoid worring about amplitude drops, FSK is probably the better way to go. Unfortunately at high freq., any capacitance would act as a straight short, unless you balance it out by adding inductance to the lines. (Does anyone know (roughly) Z-angle of the hydro lines?) I know modems used to use QSM(? I think), which used amplitude + phase encoding.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this works!
Isn't this too much of a commercial advertisement? I agree with the views about asynchronous logic being the next step as we push clock rates higher and higher, but I just think that perhaps a smaller message with a "we have a solution" might be a little more appropriate.
I have to agree with this. I've developed a keen interest in this dicussion because of what I went through.
From grd. 6 - 11 was a really bad period. Sure, social awkwardness played a large part, but it is an avalanche situation. How do you develop social skills when you are the outcast? By developing a few good friendships and trying to keep my head held high I made it through.
I think a big problem can start in the early years. When parents tell you to "Just ignore the bullies, they'll stop", it can start you on the wrong road. I think it just makes it easier for people to pick on you and you don't develop any social defenses. I always walked away from a fight, with taunts and jeers following close behind, but the situation cascaded. When you walk away once, it's much easier the second time. Of course I thought about fighting back, but I tried to keep the moral high ground since at that age your parents are (pretty much) always right.
There is a certain silver lining in this. I think from being in that situation I developed a sense of pathos/sympathy for others which I think tempers how I handle situations. Having been in that situation I find it hard to treat people in a negative way. It would probably make me a bad manager, since I'd find it really hard to fire anyone!
Things have gotten a lot better, but the memories will always remain. Hopefully people will wise up to what's going on in schools. Reducing it at an early age would be a lot easier, but I think no matter how much we try it will always be a problem. BTW, when are schools going to realize that academics CAN be more important than sports? I'm physically active, and I don't see how schools justify cutting classes (in these days of budget cuts) but keeping sports teams open citing benefits like leadership and teamwork. Those can be learned outside of school, but the academics are very hard to learn by yourself. Just my $0.02.
I could see caffine and nicotine being the top ones on a poll. There's quite a bit of drug use at university, but I can't see too many people continuing after. I mean, why risk years of work to get a degree that would be worthless with a criminal record?