What happens after Moore's Law?

[Giraffemonster]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_Law

Moore's Law states that the number of transistors commonly found in computer hardware doubles every two years. According to the article, this will last until 2015-2020.

My question is, how will the market change when Moore's Law comes to a halt? Right now, old hardware is priced cheaper than newer hardware, but when hardware stops getting better, then will most manufacturers make similar hardware? Won't that mean that prices will be mostly the same? Additionally, will everything get a bit cheaper as we will have a massive supply of "fast" hardware?

I'm probably using some terminology incorrectly, or missing a really important factor, but I'd like to know what you think.

[Paqman]

At some point in the not too distant future we'll move away from transistors etched in silicon. There's already a few potentially disruptive technologies on the horizon.

[cgroza]

At some point in the not too distant future we'll move away from transistors etched in silicon. There's already a few potentially disruptive technologies on the horizon.
In their current state, they are no match for the current silicon based processors.

[SoFl W]

Everyone knows after 2012 it wont matter anymore! ;)

[cgroza]

Everyone knows after 2012 it wont matter anymore! ;)
I wish I could see the faces of the people that already started building bunkers in 2012. Maybe it matters for them.

[Npl]

there always have been "roadblocks" with chip manufacturing in regard to Moore`s Law. So far they have all been mastered somehow, and 2015-2020 is the timespan where there are no major roadblock expected with simply scaling down the process thats used nowadays, the question how long it will last after that is open and hard to predict. New and different methods of manufacturing transistors are speculated to keep Moore`s going for 50 years or so.

[Paqman]

In their current state, they are no match for the current silicon based processors.

Sure, and the first steam trains went at walking pace and blew up a lot.

[koleoptero]

Why is the amount of transistors on a chip the only thing that can be improved? There are lots of other stuff that can be done. We already have multicore systems as an example. Have you seen the tesla workstation thing by nvidia? And improved power efficiency is another thing.

[tgm4883]

Why is the amount of transistors on a chip the only thing that can be improved? There are lots of other stuff that can be done. We already have multicore systems as an example. Have you seen the tesla workstation thing by nvidia? And improved power efficiency is another thing.

IIRC, a sudden halt in moore's law is what led to dual core processors. Basically things got so small that the technology just started to "fall apart", leading to expanding to multiple cores as the next innovation in CPU's. Things have gotten smaller since then, but I don't think it was at the pace that it was before. Either due to technical limitations or that more resources are being put into other areas (such as multicore design)

[Giraffemonster]

Why is the amount of transistors on a chip the only thing that can be improved? There are lots of other stuff that can be done. We already have multicore systems as an example. Have you seen the tesla workstation thing by nvidia? And improved power efficiency is another thing.

Improved power efficiency is something that I completely forgot about when making this thread. Not sure how I could forget about it. Manufacturers probably will make all sorts of hardware more power efficient after the number of transistors gets astronomically high, but then there's another question, "How long will that last"? Still, that's which I hope gets improved some time soon. I'm pretty sure AMD has this Quad Core Propus at 2.5Ghz at 45W, so I guess that's catching on already.

[ibrrfarr]

Nanotechnology (NNT). In a nutshell it is machines at a subatomic level. Moore's Law is bound by the environmental dynamics which control. What I mean is that microchips occupy X amount of space and thus when the maximum space allocation of Y is achieved then that's it; a finite amount of space to place objects so to speak.

Enter NNT. To best understand the space allocation (and NNT is a very new science to civilians, not the military) a carbon nanotube occupies 2 nanometers. A nanometer is roughly 2 million times as large as the head of a stick pin; one billionth of a meter.

One of the more exciting aspects of NNT is the fact NNT is able to generate its own power. In 2008, we were building NNT clothing which could generate electricity. Basically, zinc oxide nanowires can generate electrical current using the piezoelectric effect. Accordingly, the use of keyboards (the depression of keys during keystrokes helps you understand better) would create the same effect.

In relating Ubuntu (and most Open Source applications), one only needs to look and the definition of computing which Bill (H)ates dictated twenty years ago: "M*crosoft is computing." Had we all subscribed to this we wouldn't be reaping the benefits we are today. The same is true of subscription to Moore's Law.

Moore's Law is flawed and incongruous with the 21st Century. My two cents.