21–30 of 268 posts
So it costs $500 million every time someone designs a SoC and (before now) nobody has spent $100 million trying to make that more efficient?
So it costs $500 million every time someone designs a SoC and (before now) nobody has spent $100 million trying to make that more efficient?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Guns and bombs are cheap. Everyone has plenty of them. The power of our military is in force prjoection; that is, the ability to use those guns and bombs anywhere at any time. That requires massive, sustained logistics spending. To the point it may seem absurd and wasteful. But the alternative is fighting a fair fight on equal footing. I’d rather not do that.
Guns and bombs are cheap. The Zumwalt, F-35, B-2, and more are not cheap. I would point out that “smart” bombs and cruise missiles are not cheap, and the cost really starts to add up. Nuclear weapons research, production, and maintenance isn’t cheap. So really it’s fair to say that guns and bombs aren’t cheap, but they are also a distraction from the delivery systems, which are catastrophically expensive. the point i…
You're right, they sure aren't. But as a result no other military force on earth besides NATO has the capability to launch air superiority fighters from amphibious assault ships, and perform multi-ton circumglobal bombing sorties. That kind of capability doesn't come cheap, and shouldn't be dismissed.
Take away the B2 and we are fighting to-to-toe with Russian/Chinese long range bombers
Without the F-35 we are on equal footing with Chinese/Russian carrier based aircraft
Without Zumwalt class ships, we are going head on against Chinese missile destroyers and subs of equal capability.
The whole point is that you don't want an even remotely fair fight. "Keeping up" with others's spending, even within an order of magnitude, is a really bad idea if you can help it.
Won't this project reduce barriers to entry for their industry ? and if so, isn't it against their interests to participate?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I sincerely doubt our enormously bloated defense budget is because of research...
The DoD budget exceeds Google's market cap, and their research budget exceeds Google's annual revenue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Guns and bombs are cheap. Everyone has plenty of them. The power of our military is in force prjoection; that is, the ability to use those guns and bombs anywhere at any time. That requires massive, sustained logistics spending. To the point it may seem absurd and wasteful. But the alternative is fighting a fair fight on equal footing. I’d rather not do that.
Guns and bombs are cheap. The Zumwalt, F-35, B-2, and more are not cheap. I would point out that “smart” bombs and cruise missiles are not cheap, and the cost really starts to add up. Nuclear weapons research, production, and maintenance isn’t cheap. So really it’s fair to say that guns and bombs aren’t cheap, but they are also a distraction from the delivery systems, which are catastrophically expensive. the point i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Guns and bombs are cheap. Everyone has plenty of them. The power of our military is in force prjoection; that is, the ability to use those guns and bombs anywhere at any time. That requires massive, sustained logistics spending. To the point it may seem absurd and wasteful. But the alternative is fighting a fair fight on equal footing. I’d rather not do that.
Guns and bombs are cheap. The Zumwalt, F-35, B-2, and more are not cheap. I would point out that “smart” bombs and cruise missiles are not cheap, and the cost really starts to add up. Nuclear weapons research, production, and maintenance isn’t cheap. So really it’s fair to say that guns and bombs aren’t cheap, but they are also a distraction from the delivery systems, which are catastrophically expensive. the point i…
The DoD budget, as usually reported, generally doesn't include funding allocated for specific operations (e.g. the Afghan or Iraq conflicts).
> focus on proven tech
The average soldier has always wanted proven tech. But what they really need (and what the officers ask for) is training. More HUMVEEs and Arleigh Burke destroyers, fewer wheel 4.0s and Zumwalts.
We are at the top of a power curve with regard to total dollars spent, but we actually about 4th in terms of defense spending as a percent GDP, (I think we're around 5th). Soft power remains our major advantage. Not that bad when you consider our outsize role in world military affairs.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/06/25/the-bi...
I see many chip vendors on the list of participating companies. Won't this project reduce barriers to entry for their industry ? and if so, isn't it against their interests to participate?
Quite the contrary, lowering barriers creates more opportunities and thereby new scope for growth.
It took MSFT 30 years to finally understand that lesson and start offering a free suite of dev tools.
The EDA industry still hasn't groked that lesson.
So it costs $500 million every time someone designs a SoC and (before now) nobody has spent $100 million trying to make that more efficient?
They have. The problem is that efficient silicon layout is NP-complete and automated tools can't do better than humans today. At best they can assist and detect certain classes of errors. I'm sure Intel has invested more than $100 million on tooling by now.
But when it comes to EDA, the utterly closed-source culture of the industry has completely prevented what essentially amounts to a horde of smart people to work on the problem: no one - except a very small number insiders - even know what the problems are.