Thursday, July 9, 2015

7 Nanometer Transistors

Nobody knows how long Moore's law of ever faster computing will keep going. Some people worried that it would be very hard to improve current generation of chips, the smallest elements of which are about 10 nanometers across. But IBM recently announced that they have manufactured working silicon-germanium chips with transistors only 7 nanometers across. If these prove to be commercially viable, as everyone seems to expect, then the progress marches on for at least one more generation.

What we will do with all that computer power is another question, other than ever more sophisticated games. My second son recently built himself a super-fast computer for gaming, using an up-to-date chip set, but I am perfectly happy with my 5-year-old technology and see no particular reason to upgrade. Maybe it's time for computer manufacturers to ease up on making things ever faster and concentrate on making them more reliable?

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