Physical limitations and performance

[vksnr]

So what does everyone think about the future in terms of performance? As features get ever smaller, allowing for increased speed and lower power, we are going to run into diminishing returns on performance. Unless...? Any idea of the direction designers might go or are going? Will structures be developed to help OS writers handle more concurency more easily? Etc. I am curious to hear everyone's opinions on this subject.

VKsnr

[CPUShack]

well things can only get so small, so die shrinks with current MOS technology are not going to happen much more.

At 90nm you have about 1 in 28000 electrons tunnelling through the barriers, this is fine, but as the barrier widths decrease this will go to something like 1 in 10, which is NOT acceptable.

That is why such technologies are being explored such as RTDs and quantum dots.

These are devices that actually USE tunneling as a device.

The benefit is a RTD can have multiple states (beyond simply on and off)

So the problem comes down to not speed, but the transistor as we know it.

[chipcollector]

Intel has developed a new cpu which is sized at a microscopic level. The only problem they have is finding a way to connect it to the motherboard. I have very little information on this- could or could not be true. But it is definately possible. Hopefully a new technology will come out that does not involve an OS, but more likely a system controlled by your brain

[pphillips12]

Do a google search on +IBM +Cell

This new processor developed by IBM, Sony, and Toshiba was unveiled
Monday.

This thing is going to be a quantum leap from existing processors and it's not something that only exists in a lab either. It's going in the Sony Playstation 3.

The "Cell" is a 9 core processor with each core running over 4Ghz. They will be extremely cheap, at least 15 times more powerful than any existing
processor from Intel or AMD and have built-in connectivity so that you can
build machines with 2, 4, 8, 128, etc cell processors by simply plugging
in a "card" containing another dozen cells. Word is that IBM has a prototype desktop PC that's capable of 35 teraflops. The cell chips are also going to be extremely cheap. So cheap, Sony and Toshiba plan on putting them in TV's, Video games, etc.

A few screen shots have been leaked from the Sony PS3 with the cell processor over the last few weeks and they are unbelievable. The PS3
graphics make the highest-end gaming PC's running the latest
games like Farcry or HL2 look like Pong in comparison. Just imagine
the movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within rendered in real time
and mutiply by about 4.

Here's a little info about the cell...

Cell Architecture Explained - Part 5: Conclusion and References

Short Overview

The Cell architecture consists of a number of elements:

The Cell Processor
This is a 9 core processor, one of these cores is something similar to a PowerPC G5 and acts as a controller. The remaining 8 cores are called APUs and these are very high performance vector processors. Each APU contains it's own block of high speed RAM and is capable of 32 GigaFlops (32bit). The APUs are independent processors and can act alone or can be set up to process a stream of data with different APUs working on different stages. This ability to act as a "stream processor" gives access to the full processing power of a Cell which is more than 10 times higher than even the fastest desktop processors.

In addition to the raw processing power the Cell includes a high performance multi-channel memory subsystem and a number of high speed interconnects for connecting to other Cells or I/O devices.

Distributing Processing
Cells are specifically designed to work together. While they can be directly connected via the high speed interconnects they can also be connected in other ways or distributed over a network. The Cells are not gaming or computer specific, they can be in anything from PDAs to TVs and all can be used to effectively act as a single system. The infrastructure for this is built into each Cell as they operate on "Software Cells" which contain routing information as well as programs and data.

Parallel programming is usually complex but in this case the OS will look at the resources it has and distribute tasks accordingly, this process does not involve re-programming. If you want more processing power you simply add more Cells, you do not need to replace the existing ones as the new Cells will augment the existing ones.

Overall the Cell architecture is an architecture for distributed, parallel processing using very powerful computational engines developed using a highly aggressive design strategy. These devices shall be produced in vast numbers so they will provide vast processing resources at a low cost.

Conclusion

The first Cell based desktop computer will be the fastest desktop computer in the industry by a very large margin. Even high end multi-core x86s will not get close. Companies who produce microprocessors or DSPs are going to have a very hard time fighting the power a Cell will deliver. We have never seen a leap in performance like this before and I don't expect we'll ever see one again, It'll send shock-waves through the entire industry and we'll see big changes as a result.

The sheer power and low cost of the Cell means it will present a challenge to the venerable PC. The PC has always been able to beat competition by virtue of it's huge software base, but this base is not as strong as it once was. A lot of software now runs on Linux and this is not dependant on x86 processors or Microsoft. Most PCs now provide more power than is necessary and this fact combined with fast JIT emulators means that if necessary the Cell can provide PC compatibility without the PC.

It will not just attack the PC industry but expect it to be widely used in embedded applications where high performance is required. This means it will be made in numbers potentially many times that of x86 CPUs and this will reduce prices further. This will also hurt PC based vendors' desires to enter the home entertainment space as PC based solutions [Entertainment] will be more complex and cost more than Cell based systems.

This is going to prove difficult for the PC as CPU and GPU suppliers will have essentially nothing to fight back with. All they can hope to do is match a Cell's performance but even that is going to be incredibly difficult given the Cell's aggressive Cray-esqe design strategy.

Cell is going to turn the industry upside down, nobody has ever produced such a leap in performance in one go and certainly not at a low price. The CPU producers will be forced to fight back and irrespective of how well the Cell actually does in the market you can be sure that in a few short years all CPUs will be providing vastly more processing resources than they do today. Even if the Cell was to fail we shall all gain from it's legacy.

Not all companies will react correctly or in time, this will provide opportunities for newer, smaller and smarter companies. Big changes are coming, they may take years but the Cell means a decade from now the technology world is going to look very different.

http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cells/Cell5.html

[vksnr]

Wow. Thanks for the pointers to the Cell processor. Pretty interesting. I wonder what Intel and others will do. They must have something similar up their sleeves.

I wonder how much parallelism we can take advantage of. Certainly image processing lends itself to this approach, and other types of signal processing too. But there are many engineering problems that are still sequential in nature, at least as far as we know how to solve them now. Perhaps advances in pure mathematicss will help us to map these problems into a parallel solution, and then these types of processors can be used for performance gains in those areas too.

Interesting.

VKsnr

[chipcollector]

I will give you fella's some good advice. This "CELL" technology runs like the powerPC. Invest all the money you can in Apple

[chipcollector]

IBM Supplies Apple with their powerPC chip, which has been used by apple in the past, and up until now in the G5 The most likely outcome would be Apple introducing a newer computer, or putting the CELL processor in the apple G6.

[CPUShack]