Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

10GHz at under 1V by 2005 - The future of Intel’s manufacturing processes [2000]

anandtech.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 180 posts

Re: 10GHz at under 1V by 2005 - The future of Intel’s manufacturing processes [2000]

#11

Post by wmf »

Article says: Obviously this 8 – 10GHz clock range would be based on Intel’s 0.07-micron process that is forecasted to debut in 2005. These processors will run at less than 1 volt, 0.85v being the current estimate.

Intel introduced a 65 nm (0.065 micron) process in 2006. The "Cedar Mill" Pentium 4 processor ran at 3.6 GHz at a whopping 1.3V although a small double-pumped part of the processor ran at 7.2 GHz. It could be overclocked to 4.5/9.0 GHz at 1.4V.

The discrepancy between 0.85V and 1.3V was caused by the end of Dennard scaling. Basically transistors require much more voltage than predicted and thus consume far more power than predicted. Although the transistors can technically run at 9 GHz, the resulting power density is very difficult to cool.

Re: 10GHz at under 1V by 2005 - The future of Intel’s manufacturing processes [2000]

#12

Post by iamaaditya »

kevin2r wrote: post #2

So, what was the reason CPUs could not scale vertically (higher frequency)? Temperature? Stability?

Technically it was heat but mostly it was due to (i) Economics, there was less demand for faster clock speed. Otherwise more research could have gone towards solving heat problem. (ii) Each cycle of CPU was more efficient with ability to execute multiple instructions in a single cycle and with more efficient instruction sets.

Surprisingly, power consumption also made huge impact. As tablets and laptops got more popular than desktop battery life became a major concern and thus TDP played major role in research.

Try this fun experiment: Underclock your CPU by half a GHz and see if you notice the difference in your day to day work.

Re: 10GHz at under 1V by 2005 - The future of Intel’s manufacturing processes [2000]

#13

Post by cft »

wapz wrote: post #7

> Realistically speaking, we should be able to see NetBurst based processors reach somewhere between 8 – 10GHz in the next five years before the architecture is replaced yet again was a statement made by anandtech. Did Intel actually strive for those numbers?

Yes, click at the link at the bottom right of the article (Next) http://www.anandtech.com/show/680/7

Re: 10GHz at under 1V by 2005 - The future of Intel’s manufacturing processes [2000]

#15

Post by gaze »

aisofteng wrote: post #8
dzhiurgis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not enough time for electrons to move. Photons - another story.

This comment makes no sense. Neither electrons nor photons are what move through wires to propagate electrical signals.

I'd definitely say electrons propagate through wires to carry signals. The electrons charge the gates on the fets which opens or closes the channel, which allows electrons to flow through another wire. I wouldn't say it's terribly explanatory tho

Re: 10GHz at under 1V by 2005 - The future of Intel’s manufacturing processes [2000]

#17

Post by monocasa »

gaze wrote: post #5
kevin2r wrote: post #2

So, what was the reason CPUs could not scale vertically (higher frequency)? Temperature? Stability?

If I understand correctly, Intel CPUs around that time were super deeply pipelined so you could meet timing closure at such high frequencies. So yeah you can keep pushing the clock-speeds up and up but now a mispredicted branch really shoots you in the foot. Makes sense at the time because people associated clock speed directly with performance. Higher frequency more better. Intel kinda gave up on that at some point…

Haha, yeah P4 had multiple pipeline stages just for propagation delay.

Re: 10GHz at under 1V by 2005 - The future of Intel’s manufacturing processes [2000]

#18

Post by gregoryrueda »

wapz wrote: post #7

> Realistically speaking, we should be able to see NetBurst based processors reach somewhere between 8 – 10GHz in the next five years before the architecture is replaced yet again was a statement made by anandtech. Did Intel actually strive for those numbers?

Haven't we reached the point of diminishing returns regarding processor speed? I believe this to be true for the consumer market.

Re: 10GHz at under 1V by 2005 - The future of Intel’s manufacturing processes [2000]

#19

Post by [deleted] »

wapz wrote: post #7

> Realistically speaking, we should be able to see NetBurst based processors reach somewhere between 8 – 10GHz in the next five years before the architecture is replaced yet again was a statement made by anandtech. Did Intel actually strive for those numbers?

[deleted]

Re: 10GHz at under 1V by 2005 - The future of Intel’s manufacturing processes [2000]

#20

Post by wapz »

cft wrote: post #13
wapz wrote: post #7

> Realistically speaking, we should be able to see NetBurst based processors reach somewhere between 8 – 10GHz in the next five years before the architecture is replaced yet again was a statement made by anandtech. Did Intel actually strive for those numbers?

Yes, click at the link at the bottom right of the article (Next) http://www.anandtech.com/show/680/7

Whoops thank you! I guess I have to look for the rest of the article next time.
Post reply on HN