But, 1/32 of an inch is represented *exactly* in binary (0.00001) as opposed to its value in mm (0.11001011001100110011001101), where one little bit past wordlength might, indeed, die...;-)
Now, let's try to implement it... I suggest to start with Lenovo laptops, and we only need to outsource USB dongle and exploding battery production somewhere, I suggest China, they have experience mass-producing thing!
Wait! All your matching parts (laptop, dongle, battery) are made where? In... China?;-)
... I think made by Citrix, and it "runs" in your browser, but I would not really recommend it to anyone. Total steaming POS...
The maskhouse we deal with uses(d) that for customers to verify that the layers are what they expect. The program they run on the other end is something from Apollo workstations era, window manager in that session was TWM (we are talking now, a decade into 21st centiry!:) ), and it was slower than when I first tried running X over dial-up modem in 90s, without compression...;-)
So, I am not having high hopes about useability of X11-over-HTTP, but who knows...
Sorry, the paper that you are referring to was not posted by me, but by another person in this thread -- and no, I could not read it either.
I do know (from my previous life;-) ) that, I think, 6" III/V wafers were routinely thinned to 1 or 2 mils (25-50 um), yes, those were not 8-12", but then they were not exactly mass-produced either, and, needing backside vias and backside metal they *had* to be that thin.
And yes, I am skeptical about the yields of that "cracking" process myself, even without invoking reusing the remainder of the wafer for actual fab again, just wanted to point out that thin enough substrate will, indeed, bend, not break (at first!:) )!
Yes, 1-3 mil thinned wafers feel like a piece of plastic, easily flapping around (though, I would not want to literally bend them at 90 or 180 degrees at small radius and expect them to still work). If you ever had a chance to handle a thin microscope cover slip (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_slip), you would know how it feels, especially if you imagine that it is 4-8 inches in diameter -- pretty flexible, monocrystalline, or not.
And, a (seemingly much more reliable) version of the process has been around for years, involves [polishing the backside of the wafer, instead of trying to "slice" through Si with a wire. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafer_backgrinding . By the way, after your wafer is polished down to couple of mil thickness, you can etch vias through it and deposit backside metal, to serve as a groundplane -- not a big deal for CMOS, but pretty big for high-power low-layer-count RF GaAs/InP chips.
It was emitted before, not after cloud was absorbed into the black hole...
My favourite lines from TFA: So maybe saying this was a belch is a bit misleading, since you do that after you eat something. This is more like your food screaming loudly and incoherently and flailing around while you’re actually eating it. Is that better?
Well, first word in Subject should have been "Is"... Sorry, edited from something else...;(
MAC, as in, "Media Access Control" address, or Ethernet address, which every Ethernet card, wired or wireless, has. To quote Wikipedia on IEEE 802.11, "Current 802.11 standards define "frame" types for use in transmission of data as well as management and control of wireless links. Frames are divided into very specific and standardized sections. Each frame consists of a MAC header...".
So, I was totally confused by the last line of the summary, one possible interpretation of that is that "MAC-based comm." is somehow lower-level that full-fledged 802.11, but how would that shave off almost 2 sec of latency is a bit puzzling...
... we, university students (personal experience), but also, I've heard more seniour people in "intellectual" line of employment were forced in the Fall to go help our collectivized farmers pick up potatoes and do some other harvest-related work. (Kartoshka!;-) )...
I do not know if, given my current line work, I would enjoy assembling high-tech stuff more than that (and would definitely learn more from it), but, overall, I, personally, did not mind at all, it was an excuse to live outside the control of our parents (for those of us who did not go to school in another city/lived in dorm which was less common than in this country), get as drunk as our farmer hosts, shmooze with girls, etc.;-) As to actual work -- my buddies and myself self-organized to proclaim that we are going to do actual "hard" work, loading bags of potato on trucks, while the rest do "easy" part, pick and load the bags... Of course it would take much more actual time to fill a bag than to throw it into the truck, the rest we spent hanging out and baking potatoes!
Somehow I think that efficiency necessary to assemble iPhones would preclude those Chinese kids to have any good times though, but do not think that it was/is not common in "Communist" countries.
(And, no, we did not get paid, unless you could a bag of potatos which you might or might not sneak back home at the end).
I actually went to see "the tool" and it looks like Twitter is giving us the same old two choices (non-choices, in my opinion, but that is evident from my.signature;-) ).
It would be much more interesting if it were launched a bit earlier in the season, or, at least, include all candidates remaining, including third parties.
Note that when I am an old person (and I am not required by the government to spend a portion of my income on pain pills! But that would get us totally off-topic), I will be free to contribute that money to something like space exploration voluntary, oh, heck, sign up for a one-way trip to Mars!;-)
But, I guess, I am already old enough by now (and lived under too many nominally different governments) not to have high hopes for having a "wise one" anymore any time soon...
Also, "all the money is here on this old one" -- only for your definition of "money", pieces of paper which might or might not buy anything at any given time or location, or, even more current, some trailing zeros in a 64-bit number on a bank computer. If one defines money as something that people are willing to use for exchange, I can see how He3 would work nicely, and there is much more of it up there than down here...
Paul B.
P.S. To two other people who replied -- yes, this is off-topic, but invitation was built right into the summary, in the form of "if any are ever funded" whining. And no, I was not talking about space businesses (though, I'm all for that!), but possible non-profit exploration -- thus, estimated possibility of chip-in funds from individuals to fund equivalent of NASA, not possible business investments! For the record, I did join at a very early stage a risky private start-up operating on the fine edge between science and science fiction, putting my life efforts and possible $$ where my mouth is, thank you!;-)
P.P.S Why does/. allow for "Overrated" mods on comments which have *not* been positively rated, except for karma-bonus modifier, I have no clue!
Yes, Cut taxes, starve the government. Live free or die! -- also, stop wars, stop meddling in other countries affairs, and let interested people get together and explore on their own...
For the record, 2012 total NASA budget is $19B; if just 1/16th of US population voluntary decide that it is a worthy cause, they would have to pay about $80/month to sustain that, something I would personally not mind doing, especially if my federal taxes are cut to zero and I am suddenly almost twice richer, I am sure many/.ers would feel the same! Not to mention that the resulting PASO (Private... Organization) might end up being, hmm, a bit more efficient than NASA.
Why government (especially Federal one) *has* to be answer to *everything*?
I do not think that it will be "one standard blank" -- from how I imagine it works, post positions determine ends and T's of the "wires", so, good luck with "arbitrary circuits"... From TFA: "By carefully controlling the initial spacing of the posts, Ross explains, the researchers were able to set the spacing, angles, bends and junctions of the cylinders that form on the surface."
Of course, this can as well be a great achievement, for other, more biologically-connected purposes, but I am getting tired of generic "This is the way to make next-gen chips" hype, just call it what it is, a decent advance in nanotech, mixing semiconductors and long molecules, but do not hold your breath for the next Pentium to come out of it!;-)
As to "Anybody could design chips" part -- well... Your world is much luckier than mine!;-)
... so, the claim is that one can build self-assembled circuitry, but you are still using 10nm "silica posts [...] built using equipment that is compatible with existing semiconductor fabs", i.e., you are still running your wafers through 10nm-capable semiconductor process for at least one step. If you have access to such a process, why not build wires using it as well, while we are at it?
Iast time I checked, metal ions in deposition chambers also "self-assemble" themselves into metal films, subsequently selectively etched and producing wiring on each and every chip currently made!;-)
And the funny thing that it was even not that "secret" of a technology (application was, of course!), I remember reading about "new life of a vacuum tube" in Soviet magazine for technically-inclined kids ("Yunyi Technic") sometime in my early teens, late 70s - early 80s -- I definitely remember reading about thin-film integrated vacuum tubes technology, and, I think, about it's rad-hardness (not using that word, of course, or better half of the reason why it is important;-) ).
Definitely infrared (THz for some definition of THz) carrier, with up to 40 Gbps datarate, able to go to and from a big router in space...
In the interest of full disclosure, I have been working on a small part related to that program in my past, so immediately reacted along the lines of "Wait a minute, what about Northrop LaserComm???"...;-)
And yes, his dad's presidential campaign is going on well better than expected (though you are unlikely to read about this in mainstream media), for Ron Paul's views on TSA see, e.g., this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a14ktflduO0 (note that it is a speech from 2007, pre-current wave of intencified abuse).
Slashdot Mirror
But, 1/32 of an inch is represented *exactly* in binary (0.00001) as opposed to its value in mm (0.11001011001100110011001101), where one little bit past wordlength might, indeed, die... ;-)
Paul B.
A Beowolf clusted of these! :)
Paul B.
In the context of this article, I misread your last words as "and reigniting our leaders", which might be appropriate too! ;-)
But, I am cheering for General Fusion anyway! http://www.generalfusion.com/
Paul B.
Good idea!
Now, let's try to implement it... I suggest to start with Lenovo laptops, and we only need to outsource USB dongle and exploding battery production somewhere, I suggest China, they have experience mass-producing thing!
Wait! All your matching parts (laptop, dongle, battery) are made where? In... China? ;-)
Paul B.
Good job! ;-)
I liked ATDT5551212 touch... Feeling nostalgic today, I'd guess...
Paul B.
... I think made by Citrix, and it "runs" in your browser, but I would not really recommend it to anyone. Total steaming POS...
The maskhouse we deal with uses(d) that for customers to verify that the layers are what they expect. The program they run on the other end is something from Apollo workstations era, window manager in that session was TWM (we are talking now, a decade into 21st centiry! :) ), and it was slower than when I first tried running X over dial-up modem in 90s, without compression... ;-)
So, I am not having high hopes about useability of X11-over-HTTP, but who knows...
Vim demo was impressive through!
Paul B.
Was suprised...
Paul B.
Sorry, the paper that you are referring to was not posted by me, but by another person in this thread -- and no, I could not read it either.
I do know (from my previous life ;-) ) that, I think, 6" III/V wafers were routinely thinned to 1 or 2 mils (25-50 um), yes, those were not 8-12", but then they were not exactly mass-produced either, and, needing backside vias and backside metal they *had* to be that thin.
And yes, I am skeptical about the yields of that "cracking" process myself, even without invoking reusing the remainder of the wafer for actual fab again, just wanted to point out that thin enough substrate will, indeed, bend, not break (at first! :) )!
Paul B.
Yes, 1-3 mil thinned wafers feel like a piece of plastic, easily flapping around (though, I would not want to literally bend them at 90 or 180 degrees at small radius and expect them to still work). If you ever had a chance to handle a thin microscope cover slip (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_slip), you would know how it feels, especially if you imagine that it is 4-8 inches in diameter -- pretty flexible, monocrystalline, or not.
And, a (seemingly much more reliable) version of the process has been around for years, involves [polishing the backside of the wafer, instead of trying to "slice" through Si with a wire. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafer_backgrinding . By the way, after your wafer is polished down to couple of mil thickness, you can etch vias through it and deposit backside metal, to serve as a groundplane -- not a big deal for CMOS, but pretty big for high-power low-layer-count RF GaAs/InP chips.
Paul B.
It was emitted before, not after cloud was absorbed into the black hole...
My favourite lines from TFA:
So maybe saying this was a belch is a bit misleading, since you do that after you eat something. This is more like your food screaming loudly and incoherently and flailing around while you’re actually eating it. Is that better?
Paul B.
Like inches???
No, more like grams, or ounces... ;-)
Paul B.
Well, first word in Subject should have been "Is"... Sorry, edited from something else... ;(
MAC, as in, "Media Access Control" address, or Ethernet address, which every Ethernet card, wired or wireless, has. To quote Wikipedia on IEEE 802.11, "Current 802.11 standards define "frame" types for use in transmission of data as well as management and control of wireless links. Frames are divided into very specific and standardized sections. Each frame consists of a MAC header...".
So, I was totally confused by the last line of the summary, one possible interpretation of that is that "MAC-based comm." is somehow lower-level that full-fledged 802.11, but how would that shave off almost 2 sec of latency is a bit puzzling...
Paul B.
... thus the notion of MAC still applies?
Just curious...
Paul B.
I would say, f*ck the first two! Or, do you have a very strong preference between R and D?
Paul B.
P.S. I'll wait a little bit more until changing my .signature...
... we, university students (personal experience), but also, I've heard more seniour people in "intellectual" line of employment were forced in the Fall to go help our collectivized farmers pick up potatoes and do some other harvest-related work. (Kartoshka! ;-) )...
I do not know if, given my current line work, I would enjoy assembling high-tech stuff more than that (and would definitely learn more from it), but, overall, I, personally, did not mind at all, it was an excuse to live outside the control of our parents (for those of us who did not go to school in another city/lived in dorm which was less common than in this country), get as drunk as our farmer hosts, shmooze with girls, etc. ;-) As to actual work -- my buddies and myself self-organized to proclaim that we are going to do actual "hard" work, loading bags of potato on trucks, while the rest do "easy" part, pick and load the bags... Of course it would take much more actual time to fill a bag than to throw it into the truck, the rest we spent hanging out and baking potatoes!
Somehow I think that efficiency necessary to assemble iPhones would preclude those Chinese kids to have any good times though, but do not think that it was/is not common in "Communist" countries.
(And, no, we did not get paid, unless you could a bag of potatos which you might or might not sneak back home at the end).
Paul B.
... beforehand to entangle particles? And then put one from each pair into separate boxes?
Something tells me that energy conservation still holds...
Paul B.
I actually went to see "the tool" and it looks like Twitter is giving us the same old two choices (non-choices, in my opinion, but that is evident from my .signature ;-) ).
It would be much more interesting if it were launched a bit earlier in the season, or, at least, include all candidates remaining, including third parties.
At least Google Trends can give us a bit more interesting picture, e.g., this one: http://www.google.com/trends/?q=mitt+romney,+barack+obama,+ron+paul,+gary+johnson&ctab=0&geo=us&geor=all&date=ytd&sort=0
Paul B.
Note that when I am an old person (and I am not required by the government to spend a portion of my income on pain pills! But that would get us totally off-topic), I will be free to contribute that money to something like space exploration voluntary, oh, heck, sign up for a one-way trip to Mars! ;-)
But, I guess, I am already old enough by now (and lived under too many nominally different governments) not to have high hopes for having a "wise one" anymore any time soon...
Also, "all the money is here on this old one" -- only for your definition of "money", pieces of paper which might or might not buy anything at any given time or location, or, even more current, some trailing zeros in a 64-bit number on a bank computer. If one defines money as something that people are willing to use for exchange, I can see how He3 would work nicely, and there is much more of it up there than down here...
Paul B.
P.S. To two other people who replied -- yes, this is off-topic, but invitation was built right into the summary, in the form of "if any are ever funded" whining. And no, I was not talking about space businesses (though, I'm all for that!), but possible non-profit exploration -- thus, estimated possibility of chip-in funds from individuals to fund equivalent of NASA, not possible business investments! For the record, I did join at a very early stage a risky private start-up operating on the fine edge between science and science fiction, putting my life efforts and possible $$ where my mouth is, thank you! ;-)
P.P.S Why does /. allow for "Overrated" mods on comments which have *not* been positively rated, except for karma-bonus modifier, I have no clue!
Yes, Cut taxes, starve the government. Live free or die! -- also, stop wars, stop meddling in other countries affairs, and let interested people get together and explore on their own...
For the record, 2012 total NASA budget is $19B; if just 1/16th of US population voluntary decide that it is a worthy cause, they would have to pay about $80/month to sustain that, something I would personally not mind doing, especially if my federal taxes are cut to zero and I am suddenly almost twice richer, I am sure many /.ers would feel the same! Not to mention that the resulting PASO (Private ... Organization) might end up being, hmm, a bit more efficient than NASA.
Why government (especially Federal one) *has* to be answer to *everything*?
My $0.02,
Paul B.
I do not think that it will be "one standard blank" -- from how I imagine it works, post positions determine ends and T's of the "wires", so, good luck with "arbitrary circuits"... From TFA:
"By carefully controlling the initial spacing of the posts, Ross explains, the researchers were able to set the spacing, angles, bends and junctions of the cylinders that form on the surface."
Of course, this can as well be a great achievement, for other, more biologically-connected purposes, but I am getting tired of generic "This is the way to make next-gen chips" hype, just call it what it is, a decent advance in nanotech, mixing semiconductors and long molecules, but do not hold your breath for the next Pentium to come out of it! ;-)
As to "Anybody could design chips" part -- well... Your world is much luckier than mine! ;-)
Paul B.
... so, the claim is that one can build self-assembled circuitry, but you are still using 10nm "silica posts [...] built using equipment that is compatible with existing semiconductor fabs", i.e., you are still running your wafers through 10nm-capable semiconductor process for at least one step. If you have access to such a process, why not build wires using it as well, while we are at it?
Iast time I checked, metal ions in deposition chambers also "self-assemble" themselves into metal films, subsequently selectively etched and producing wiring on each and every chip currently made! ;-)
Paul B.
And the funny thing that it was even not that "secret" of a technology (application was, of course!), I remember reading about "new life of a vacuum tube" in Soviet magazine for technically-inclined kids ("Yunyi Technic") sometime in my early teens, late 70s - early 80s -- I definitely remember reading about thin-film integrated vacuum tubes technology, and, I think, about it's rad-hardness (not using that word, of course, or better half of the reason why it is important ;-) ).
Paul B.
I think that a chunk of glass about 30 stories high can be called a "bead"... Losely... ;-)
Or, I think that letter \mu got lost while this story was flowing through ether, more likely!
Paul B.
Why does transmission have to happen in the "room", and not, say, "outside the room", to, say, a satellite 50,000 miles away?
And, why only 3 Gbps??? Check this one out: http://www.irconnect.com/noc/press/pages/news_releases.html?d=118076
Definitely infrared (THz for some definition of THz) carrier, with up to 40 Gbps datarate, able to go to and from a big router in space...
In the interest of full disclosure, I have been working on a small part related to that program in my past, so immediately reacted along the lines of "Wait a minute, what about Northrop LaserComm???"... ;-)
Paul B.
... or did I miss <sarcasm> tag? ;)
Even if you read only /., you could not have missed this: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/05/04/1823258/rand-paul-has-a-quick-fix-for-tsa-pull-the-plug
And yes, his dad's presidential campaign is going on well better than expected (though you are unlikely to read about this in mainstream media), for Ron Paul's views on TSA see, e.g., this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a14ktflduO0 (note that it is a speech from 2007, pre-current wave of intencified abuse).
Paul B.