Global recession over the end of Moore's Law

 

What many people may not realise is that the world economy depends on the ability of microprocessor manufacturers to increase their capacity by 50% every two years. It's Moore's Law, in a simplified way of course. More accurately, Moore's law is the observation made by Intel's founder in the 60's that the number of transistors on a chip chip doubles every two years, so microprocessor performance should also double every two years. The number of transistors on a chip increases every year due to improvements in the silicon technology used to make microprocessors. The size of transistors is measured by the length of their channel, which conducts electrical current. The shorter the length, the faster and smaller the transistor. For example, the channel length of a silicon transistor in Moore's time was 10 microns (1971). Today it is 0.01 microns or 10 nanometres. The channel length decreases by a factor of 2 every 4 years. Intel and other semiconductor companies are now working on a 7nm channel length that will enter production in 2017-2018. The next length will be 5nm (2019-2020) and the last will be 3nm (2021-2022). Why the last one? Yes because the channel length will reach the size of 10 atomic layers of silicon and it is very difficult to control that size, not to mention the lithographic difficulties. Many claim that the last silicon technology will be 7nm (2017-2018). Some claim 5nm (2019-2020). Intel and other companies are trying to find a continuation of Moore's Law. For example, attempts are being made to replace the silicon (Si) transistor with InGaAs, which will give an extra boost to transistor speed without increasing its size. But such attempts so far have been unsuccessful due to the difference in Si and InGaAs crystals. Even if scientists manage to replace the Si channel with InGaAs, the new transistors will not get smaller than 3nm. There are also attempts to create transistors on two-dimensional semiconductors, but such transistors are still much worse than silicon transistors. There is also the mention of quantum computers, but these are impractical for consumer computers and smart phones in the coming decades (the processor must be cooled to near 0K, quantum entanglement spins only last for seconds, the processor must be placed in a shielded room to isolate exposure to Earth's magnetic field and other noise, etc.)

So, starting around 2021-2022, computers and cell phones will stop increasing the performance of their processors. It will not make sense for people to buy a new computer, iPad or selfphone if their processor has the same power as the old generation of these devices. The sale of new devices will drop. Since these devices are affecting many industries, experts predict a worldwide recession. As a specialist in the industry I do not yet see a technological solution to the problem. And even if there was one, it would take 5-10 years to put it into mass production. For example, scientists started working on graphene transistors back in 2004-2005, and 10 years later no progress. The market is likely to start reacting to the end of Moore's Law before 2020.

 

Hasn't it been a few years since the processors have gone up in speed and gone down the road of increasing the number of cores and all sorts of things like tablets, smartphones and big mobile phones? Then they will come up with something else, like oval-shaped screens, tell everyone that it is good and everyone will believe that it is good.

Technological progress has reached a climax. Before that, it was smooth sailing: cars, electricity, television, computers. It has sort of reached a point. What else can happen technologically that will turn the world upside down and make it move?

 

maybe in 20-22-30 there will be smartphones with 32, 64 cores ... they are already working hard to reduce power consumption

 
The number of cores would also stop growing as running multiple cores in parallel would consume more power than a single core. Reducing the size of the transistor not only made it possible to increase the number of cores but also to decrease the transistor's power, thus keeping the overall power at about the same level.
 
Vladimir:
The number of cores would also stop growing because running several cores in parallel would consume more power than a single core. Reducing the size of a transistor not only made it possible to increase the number of cores but also to decrease the power of the transistor, which would eventually keep the total power at about the same level.

Moore's law will stop working when technology reaches the limit of the physical properties of materials.

 
Dmitry Fedoseev:

Hasn't it been a few years since the processors have gone up in speed and gone down the road of increasing the number of cores and all sorts of things like tablets, smartphones and big mobile phones? Then they will come up with something else, like oval-shaped screens, tell everyone that it is good and everyone will believe that it is good.

Technological progress has reached a climax. Before that, it was smooth sailing: cars, electricity, television, computers. It has sort of reached a point. What else can happen technically that will turn the world upside down and make it move?

I 100% agree, I'm still, before any forex, on the website rsdn.ru around 2002 wrote, guys, get ready for multithreaded programming, speed increases will not happen anymore. Intel was sending out roadmaps at the time that it would soon break 15GHz, and I know that consumption is the square of speed in the general case.

Now the number of cores is also at the limit, although most programmers never learned to think in parallel.

There has to be a qualitative shift, silicon is exhausted

 

The more GHz a processor has, the more supply voltage it requires. The higher the supply voltage, the more it heats up. Accordingly, more powerful cooling systems are required.

I remember back in the day, when I was just trying my hand at programming, I had a computer with a 386 AMD processor with no more than 33 MHz. It had no cooling system at all, except for holes in the case of the sys- unit. And it worked without problems even in hot weather. Like now I remember the 85 megabyte hard disk and half of it was still free. :)

 
Vitalii Ananev:

The more GHz a processor has, the more supply voltage it requires. The higher the supply voltage, the more it heats up. Accordingly, more powerful cooling systems are required.

I remember back in the day, when I was just trying my hand at programming, I had a computer with a 386 AMD processor with no more than 33 MHz. It had no cooling system except for small holes in the case. And it worked without problems even in hot weather. Like now I remember the 85 megabyte hard disk and half of it was still free. :)

Yeah, even the first Pentiums worked with a small fan like a matchbox.
 
Yuriy Zaytsev:

Moore's law will cease to work when technology reaches the limit of the physical properties of materials.

The limit will come when the equivalent of a brain is developed, but in the meantime, there is room for improvement.
 
Alexandr Murzin:
The limit will be reached when the brain analogue is developed, but in the meantime, there is room for improvement.

:-) Bio connector - connecting devices to the brain, like "Bio-USB".

 

Soon there will be devices based on torsion fields and more using the energy of the physical vacuum.

There will be help from "above", beings of a higher intelligence.

Everything is going according to plan. No need to worry. :)