Breakthrough: The Secret to Making Processors 1,000 Times Faster • Hacker News Board

Re: Breakthrough: The Secret to Making Processors 1,000 Times Faster

#21

Post by kristofferR » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 6:44 PM UTC

This is really exciting. I don't see anything with this techology that would limit it to just CPU chips. I'd imagine it would work just as well in a GPU chip. That would make incredibly realistic simulation of graphics and physics possible.

It would obiviously revolutionize gaming completely, but most imporantly it would revolutize science. Imagine having the power of the whole Folding@Home network in your laptop! Imagine how much power the future Folding@Home projects and other similar projects will have.

I'm a diehard optimist, but a sudden 100-1000x increase in ordinary CPU speeds could have the possibility to save thousands (if not millions) of lives and advice science a hell of a lot!

Re: Breakthrough: The Secret to Making Processors 1,000 Times Faster

#22

Post by Tycho » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 6:45 PM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #14

DrCatbox wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same as always, more "value", specialization and jobs created which means more money for the rich and less money for the poor.

Are you sure you're in the right place? If you believe making bigger levers for human minds is evil, this might not be the right community for you, since it's what most of us are trying to do on a daily basis.

I like the way you phrased that - levers for the human mind.

Maybe when we talk about the fight against poverty and unemployment, we should talk about it in terms of the type of levers we are making. Like high-frequency trading is a lever that only very smart, very educated people can actually use. But all humans no matter their intelligence or education possess a flexibility that would let them be productive (beyond what can be achieved with automation), given the right levers.

Re: Breakthrough: The Secret to Making Processors 1,000 Times Faster

#23

Post by gmaslov » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 6:46 PM UTC

smhinsey wrote: post #9

Does anyone know by what metric it will be 1,000 faster? It seems like a technique for having massive numbers of cores in parallel, but I'm not sure how the adhesive would address any specific improvements to the cores themselves. That said, even if it's just a way to get 1,000-core CPUs or whatever, it sounds like a remarkable breakthrough.

I'm speculating wildly here, but I suspect a major benefit to going 3D like this will be improved chip layout -- no need to take a lengthy route around all the stuff in the middle just to get from the ALU to the L1 cache (for example), just go straight up.

Of course the article doesn't mention if it's possible to make (and align) vias through this special glue, but I would really hope so.

Re: Breakthrough: The Secret to Making Processors 1,000 Times Faster

#24

Post by idonthack » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 6:46 PM UTC

AshleysBrain wrote: post #20

So... the CPU will complete its work in nanoseconds... then go back to waiting milliseconds for I/O, right?

RAM can be placed in the stack, eliminating slow trips accross the frontside bus. The only remaining bottleneck should be hdd access.

Re: Breakthrough: The Secret to Making Processors 1,000 Times Faster

#25

Post by pedalpete » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 6:47 PM UTC

The question I have is what would we do with processors that are 1000 times faster than now?

I remember buying my first computer and asking to upgrade to a 30mb hard-drive instead of 25mb. The sales guy said I would 'never fill 25mb'. He had no point of reference for how large graphic, files would be (this is pre-digital photography).

What new capabilities/industries will be enabled with even 1/10th of that power in a mobile device?

Re: Breakthrough: The Secret to Making Processors 1,000 Times Faster

#26

Post by burgerbrain » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 6:47 PM UTC

shithead wrote: post #15

Reality check: this is total bullshit. A miracle glue will not solve power dissipation problems, not even if it were a perfect thermal conductor.

It's not a miracle, it's science. And if they can back it up, it doesn't matter if you find it inconceivable.

Re: Breakthrough: The Secret to Making Processors 1,000 Times Faster

#27

Post by pork » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 6:47 PM UTC

starwed wrote: post #13

So this is a way of dissipating heat more efficiently, such that chips can be apparently be stacked on top of each other -- does that really help all that much for consumer (and especially mobile) stuff? Seems like you're still generating the same total amount of heat, that needs venting from the machine. And still consuming the same amount of power. I'm sure there's some value here, but it's not going to arise from…

When large advances in processing power become cost-effective and widespread, programming paradigms will change to take advantage of the fact. Cases in point: the Cell processor and modern PS3 games that really take advantage of it, CUDA on graphics cards and all the scientific computing that is starting to shift to it, and even multi-core and the renewed interest in multithreaded programming.

Re: Breakthrough: The Secret to Making Processors 1,000 Times Faster

#28

Post by pork » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 6:49 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #19

ch0wn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could have quite an impact on CPU-bound cryptographic algorithms.

Probably not. Most modern ciphers have security bounds measured in solar systems worth of atom-sized supercomputers. Hardware-accelerated attacks on 1024 bit RSA keys (for which no real-world attacks are published) are predicated on custom silicon. A massive, massive improvement in compute might hasten SHA-1's demise, but SHA-1 is already on life support today. It is unlikely that even a huge unexpected leap in compu…

Or in other words, you're only going to get constant factor improvements in asymptotic run times with these chips.

Re: Breakthrough: The Secret to Making Processors 1,000 Times Faster

#29

Post by zeteo » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 6:50 PM UTC

This is a poorly written, sensationalistic article. Here's the original press release:

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/35358.wss

Basically, this is about IBM and 3M starting a new research project. Whether it would work, how long it would take, at what cost - these are all open questions.

Re: Breakthrough: The Secret to Making Processors 1,000 Times Faster

#30

Post by brainless » Sat, Sep 10, 2011, 6:52 PM UTC

The article is not very technical, but I wanted to understand: Would this enable non-CPU core to be also glued?

I mean a single stack of say 12CPU layers, 12GPU layers, 8 memory layers, 2 Physics and so on... Could that be possible, then we are getting a really good overall throughput, or am I thinking wrong?