patrick.net

Roidy says

Moore's Law stipulates that processors double in capacity every 18 mos.

"The complexity for minimum component costs has in- creased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year (see graph on next page). Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase."

- from "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits", By Gordon E. Moore in Electronics, Volume 38, Number 8, April 19, 1965

Read Dr. Moore's paper, Intel has a link to it on their website. (link).

In the paper, in his own words, where he describes his observation, and makes his prediction that is now known as Moore's Law. One of the words that you will not read is "microprocessor". His observations, and his predictions, in his words in his own paper, were about cost reduction, not gate length nor half pitch nor lithography node nor wafer diameter nor clockspeed nor anything other else but cost.

Moore's Law is about cost reduction. The other stuff about Moore's Law is Cool-Aid.

There's lotsa different ways to achieve cost reduction. Playing one government against another for the privilege of having fab built in its jurisdiction is one way to achieve cost reduction. Getting access to cheap capital in a booming 1990's stock market is another. Outsourcing manufacturing to pure foundries in places like Taiwan and Communist China is another.

B.A.C.A.H. says

"The complexity for minimum component costs has in- creased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year (see graph on next page). Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase."

- from "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits", By Gordon E. Moore in Electronics, Volume 38, Number 8, April 19, 1965

Gentle Reader,
Note that Moore is stating this in terms of complexity as increasing for a minimized cost. This means that the electronics becomes more powerful for the same or even less cost. Anyway, the title of his paper" Cramming more components onto integrated circuits." clearly states his point. He is saying that the ICs will become more complex for the same or less cost. These go together.

Also, the simple reason one does not read 'microprocessor' is the fact that those were not invented yet. It would be another six years before that was accomplished by Intel. It was the 4004 to be exact. I actually worked on those and the 8088. After that it was the MC68000.

What is required is a translation of that paper into a more advanced technological environment that does include the electronics of our day: microprocessors, PICs, FPGAs, etc.etc.

So, I stand by my earlier assertion that processor power needs to double about every 18 mos.

I like red Kool-Aid, BTW.

Regards,
Roidy

Roidy,

All the technology ya need to keep the gig going is becoming ever more expensive.

Compared to 193/immersion, the cost of implimenting EUV lithography on a massive scale will be taking it to a hole'nuva level; akin to mass scale deployment of stealth bomber technology for the next generation of boeing or airbus passenger jets. (Not exactly the "dumb shrink scaling" that Moore alluded to in his paper which for decades has been a quick 'n dirty and clever approach to cost reduction).

Over the decades since Moore made his observation and prediction, sometimes when a new technology was introduced, it was profitless even when it got goin' on a mass scale, till the clever engineers would deploy the shrink to squeeze out the profit. But, new technology requires new capital infrastructure. Realization of Moore's Law up till now has been as much about Financial Engineering as it has been about Materials Engineering.

The assertion that microprocessors double capacity every 18 months because of "Moore's Law" is similar to 21st century preachers parsing and twisting words from a 17th century text to suit their agenda. That good ol' time religion.

Roidy says

What is required is a translation of that paper into a more advanced technological environment that does include the electronics of our day

That's what the Cool-Aid has made Moore's Law into, religion.

Moore's Law would be better reffered to as "Moore's observation".

Doubling the capacity of a microprocessor is hardly the only factor in technological development.

Kevin,
I been in the trenches of efforts to keep the gig going. It is funny, the further you are from the trenches, the more you drink the Cool Aid, till you're totally Hip and Cool and in Marketing or Real Estate or something like that. Folks in the trenches are worried about what they call the Red Bricks. The "scaling" gravy train has already reached the end of the line.

B.A.C.A.H. says

That's what the Cool-Aid has made Moore's Law into, religion.

Gentle Readers,
Moore's Law is not a religion. Perhaps I am required a greater precision in stating this than I was in my original post. The reason for a term such as "Moore's Law" is not to equate the advancement of electronic complexity with, say, Newton's Three Laws or Maxwell's Equations. This increasing complexity is NOT a foregone conclusion, but it is a required "shall" if I may.

If the human race does not continue to pour money into the needed research and basic investigation that is demanded to keep this going, then no increase in complexity at the same or less cost is possible. If that happens, then we will really start to collapse as a society. Economic progress will cease.

Moore's Law is not a physical law. It is a social law. It we do not find a way to continue the "scaling gravy train" as you so correctly put it, then we are done. If we find a way to accomplish the scaling we so desperately need, then we may still be done.

Maybe I can put "Moore's Law" it in a clearer context. We need technology and science. We need more and more of it. (I'm sorry. I cannot resist a good pun now and then.) We have 2.5 Billion people and counting who cannot turn a light switch and expect that light to work - if they have a light at all.

Again, this is why I have been saying that increasing processor power and speed are needed. It is a "shall" in my mind. This extends to all of science and technology. This is the essence of "Moore's Law" to me.

Yes, I know that the Marketing and Manager types irritate B.A.C.A.H and Kevin and why they are irritated. I have never had a Marketing class nor am I a Manager. We are on the same "path." I just look at this a little differently.

Regards,
Roidy

P.S. "Red Bricks?"

Roidy says

I stopped by the living room when the Family Members were watching "How It's Made." The subject was the manufacture of Corell Plates. No human had anything to do with the direct manufacture of these plates. All done by machine.

Yeah, but those are still made in USA (I think).

clambo says

In the beautiful modern cities there are armies of young women trying to find work at any job they can. Often they decide to become prostitutes

China must IMPORT: food, raw materials, energy, technology, expertise.
China does NOT have sufficient: arable land, good jobs, women (many more men than women in China), fresh water.

I'm guessing that these prostitutes are getting quite rich (by Chinese standards). Or at least the ones without pimps are.

P.S. "Red Bricks?"
From the Google I'm getting:
1. Interconnect delay
2. Power
BACAH, anything we're missing? My understanding is that the brick wall keeps getting moved due to innovations in process technology and semiconductor fabrication techniques. We're going vertical now...

Interconnect delay and power are performance milestones in the roadmap. Physical characteristics of the materials and the capabilities of the manufacturing equipment are deployed to achieve the milestones. The red bricks indicate no known manufacturing solutions for the different materials and equipments. Does not mean that it cannot be demonstrated in a laboratory, it refers to profitable manufacturing.

The ITRS updates the "status" of the technology development from time to time and shares its update on the web:
http://www.itrs.net/Links/2010ITRS/Home2010.htm

Roidy says

Kevin says

That's what the Cool-Aid has made Moore's Law into, religion.

Why on earth are you attributing this statement to me? I know how to spell Kool-Aid.

Also, you clearly know nothing about technology. Please stop now.

B.A.C.A.H. says

Does not mean that it cannot be demonstrated in a laboratory, it refers to profitable manufacturing.

Gentle Reader,
Exactly. Stuff that can be done under lab conditions are then broadcast as solutions or wonderful new products, 'cures', etc. usually don't end up as intended. Nanotechnology was going to revolutionize all sorts of stuff. Making a motor on an IC was a cute trick, but how useful? Don't get me wrong. We need to do this kind of stuff. I'm understand James Burke's point in his Connection series.

The diamond phase of carbon can be grown by chemical vapor deposition and MAY replace Si. Ok. It might. Still, I have not seen or heard about anyone rushing to make a commercial quad opamp out of this. I know of a lab that is developing a method to detect the process state of fluids or colloids continuously. Yep, uses lasers and regular old Si electronics. Get this: The basic science of this little item is over 70 years old and originally done in a colonial possession of Great Britain before WWII. It's a neat idea but does not use anything like cutting-edge.

I'm not forgetting MEMS. Literally billions of dollars have been poured into this technology, and MEMS is actually being used. I'm not sure on the ROI.

Don't stop pouring money into all of these things, just don't expect the results to be immediate.

Regards,
Roidy
P.S. China and India. Wow.

Roidy says

Unfortunately, the Chinese will have automation catch them. It caught us.

Yes automation will catch up the the Chinese, but there is one major difference between the China and America. Those legions of Chinese workers came from family farms in the countryside. In fact once a year they return to the family for the holidays and some do not return. Once automation catches on in China, most of these workers will return to the family farms, there will not be legions of unemployed factory workers wondering the streets in the cities. Most American's did not have family farms to return to when manufacturing became automated and the need for factory workers declined.

The Chinese are not stupid, and the political elite have a great deal of real power. There are tremendous imbalances in China, but that is to be expected by a rapidly growing country. The Chinese personality fits well with modern capitalism. They have a lot of creativity and "get up and go" when it comes to making money. The central governments conundrum is how to harness that energy without letting it get out of control. When China realizes that it is its own biggest market, it will have entered the modern age. It's not there yet.

grondeau says

When China realizes that it is its own biggest market, it will have entered the modern age. It's not there yet.

In reality there are two China's. One is the urban Chinese, with good earning potential and money to spend and other is villages and blighted urban neighborhoods with one room houses and no indoor plumbing. Out of a 1.4 billion population, 900 million peasants will never see the inside of a shopping mall, they are too poor.

https://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/05/26/listening_post/main697988.shtml

Roidy says

I stopped by the living room when the Family Members were watching "How It's Made." The subject was the manufacture of Corell Plates. No human had anything to do with the direct manufacture of these plates. All done by machine.

That's because the Corning Corelle plates you saw made were Made in USA and I think the producers of the show don't like to leave the country if they can avoid it (probably too expensive). I have them and the ones I bought in 1989 are now collector's items (to an extent) and all are still like new. I can vouch for their claim that they are break and chip resistant. That and they are very reasonably prices. I like it that they are light weight, they take up less space in your cabinet, and even though I can't match my 1989 pattern with new ones unless I pay too much on eBay for used ones, the new ones I can buy stack just fine with my old ones.

Kevin says

I'd be willing to bet large sums of money that when the robots are building everything, life will be better for everyone. The cost of manufactured goods will trend towards the cost of raw materials.

Many humans will not work, and society will be expected to support them. It will take a few decades of adjustment, lots of riots, lots more protests, but eventually it'll be the norm.

Less than half of us will work, and more than half of our earnings will be taken as taxes.

China will be behind the US in this, but not by much.

Either that or the rich will unleash a superbug on the human race and sell the antidote at a price that it will take the wealth of hundreds of average persons to purchase one dose. The wealthy will buy for everyone they care about. Some groups will band together to pick their finest to survive. Billions will die and the robots will mass grave their bodies.

The thing is, I see both our ideas as potential futures. I hope for yours, I lie awake at night fearing mine.

futuresmc says

The thing is, I see both our ideas as potential futures. I hope for yours, I lie awake at night fearing mine.

... or my children's future.

Regards,
Roidy

China doesn't have to be screwed. If they embraced real capitalism, instead of the quasi-capitalism hybrid they have now. Properly regulated, capitalism would provide them an economic boom on a scale the world has never seen before.

But we all know the Chinese are culturally incapable of working within a system based on the rule of law... So yeah.

Gentle Readers,
To paraphrase:

"But we all know the USGovt / WS / Financials are culturally incapable of working within a system based on the rule of law... So yeah."

Regards,
Roidy

Lots of China hate in this thread.

China is a geographical area the size of the USA and with a population 3-4 times as large. We can't write it off. A perpetually poor China is a powderkeg. We need to enrich China to stabilize Asia. We are helping China by selling them everything we have, and that's a good thing. China will eventually realize modest prosperity for its society, the stated goal of the CCP. In the short term this will hurt because world growth is being concentrated in China, but in the long run the Chinese must be brought into the fold of the great powers.

Africa is a geographical area more than twice the size of China and the U.S. combined, has a population of over a billion people, and yet the world has written off the entire continent.

Any claims about "can't ignore" "can't afford to write off" etc. regarding any non-bordering, non-hostile region is a big stretch; there are trade offs, but it's not really cut and dry.

China will never be included in the "fold of the great powers" until it has a real democracy and dramatically scales back state involvement in the economy (independent banks, energy companies, and telecommunications/media in particular. As long as the state owns these sectors, there is no chance of democratic rule). Aggregate wealth is only one component that defines the "great powers", and until the US, Germany, Japan, etc. can feel that China is "like us", the best you'll see is uneasy peace, not real cooperation.

India is probably closer to being accepted as an equal partner by rich nations than China is at this point.

Things can certainly change rapidly for China, though -- just look what happened with Japan.

If "great powers" feel that China is being ruled by the popular will of the Chinese people, that Chinese businesses are playing relatively fairly (you have to say "relative" here, because every country favors domestic companies to some extent), and that China isn't threatening them militarily, they'll certainly be welcomed.

The Place to Be in the 21st Century will be South America.

A few years ago a friend went to China as part of a business trip and brought home a CD of a new city. There was a highway and you could three or four miles down the road with huge, new apartment towers on either side.

It was impressive until you looked really close and realized there were no cars on the road and no people. How many of the apartments are filled? There was no way to tell.

I don't think China is that screwed. They are now beginning to understand and limit the capacity and use of their natural resources for export. They will probably be a blue water Navy in the next 20 years which will allow them to secure their natural resource interests in their area. The Chinese have a massive Cyber attack military that is very successful at stealing Foreign Government technologies and civilian technology. Hell, their secret services make the KGB look like a joke when they bring in families who train their children while in the US to become smart and successful only to steal Defense Technology (US Navy propulsion technology). I think the country is in the middle of its great industrial revolution and will catch up in a few decades thanks to the US consumer.

Hell, in 30 years San Francisco and California can expect the great Chinese Navy to make its port stops for liberty in your nearby cities. It is a strange thing to think about since the US Navy makes stops to port cities around the world; imagine if China was doing the same here in the US. Maybe we could get some of our money back when I set up my Chinese Navy friendly tourist stores....

Police think poisoned cat meat killed China tycoon

http://news.yahoo.com/police-think-poisoned-cat-meat-killed-china-tycoon-040529940.html

BEIJING (AP) — The sudden death of a billionaire in southern China is causing police to ask: Was it murder by cat meat?

Police initially detained the restaurant's owner on suspicion of serving unsanitary food. But the businessman's family refused to believe it was a simple case of food poisoning, pressed the police to investigate further and offered a reward of 100,000 yuan ($16,000) for information about his death.

I see lots of people writing articles and posting stuff about China being screwed. This has been going on for four years now. China is doing great!

IMO, it's a coordinated effort to get people with money to not invest in China, to keep their money in the US. There are a lot of socialists out there who would prefer to see their fellow Americans lose money and create more wealth redistribution, than see them make more money.

In any case, how is anyone in the US or anywhere going to know what is really going on in China? They think the Chinese govt is going to share this information? Not a chance. Any information you read about China is pure speculation. If you don't speak Chinese, you don't even have the means to communicate with the Chinese govt to ask for the proper statistics, if they even gave them to you.

Jason M. says

China is doing great!

Gentle Readers,
China is not "Corporate China." Corporate China is doing fine. The whole of China is a very different story. There are 1000 million people who are subsistence-level poor and will never be any more than that.

They are so fucked.

Regards,
Roidy

The one thing that China is missing during their Great Industrial Revolution is the mobilization of the workforce. China would probably clamp down on this drastically, but there is a force in China that may be hard to tame. That is the 1 in 4 Chinese men who will never have the opportunity to marry or have children.

Let's see what these men do. If you have no hope of a future, then things can get bad.

The only tool you have to tame that kind of manpower is a massive war.

Truthplease says

That is the 1 in 4 Chinese men who will never have the opportunity to marry or have children.

Let's see what these men do. If you have no hope of a future, then things can get bad.

The only tool you have to tame that kind of manpower is a massive war.

There is either going to be a shortage of Vaseline, a lot of gay men in China, or a lot of scared livestock. That and prostitutes are going to be really wealthy. Probably never been a better time to be a prostitute or pimp in China.

Truthplease says

That is the 1 in 4 Chinese men who will never have the opportunity to marry or have children.

One good war will take care of that.

Kevin says

one good war will take care of that.

With who? North China Vs South China? It's estimated that as many as 70 million people were killed in World War II. So if china's population is 1.3 billion and the population is roughly 56.25% male and 43.75% female (this would give you the 1 in 4 men unmarried ratio) that gives you a male population of about 730 million. So the war would have to be big enough to kill off 182 million men, roughly twice the size of World War II deaths.

Caveman or not, you have to do something with all those men. Otherwise they start causing problems.

GameOver says

That seems to be the standard response of most Americans nowadays towards any perceived threats.

That's funny coming from a guy who is flying the flag upside down!

According to Section 8a of the United States Flag Code, "The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property."

>>>According to Section 8a of the United States Flag Code, "The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property."

Also see:

The United States Flag Code establishes advisory rules for display and care of the flag of the United States. It is Chapter 1 of Title 4 of the United States Code (4 U.S.C. § 1 et seq). This is a U.S. federal law, but there is no penalty for failure to comply with it and it is not widely enforced—indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that punitive enforcement would conflict with the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Flag_Code

GameOver says

In fact, the only valid question here is really just: Why the FUCK are YOU not flying YOUR flag upside down?

Because, I am not a coward who thinks a little diversity is the end of this country. We've had problems before and this too shall pass.

I swear some of you people think Obama is the anti-christ, just like the left thought Bush was.

Again, my point in this thread was that China is not completely screwed. The will have to deal with the unforseen results of the one child policy which gave them an unimaginable amount of men who will not have the opportunity to marry and have children. That would be devastating to some men and drive their passion into other areas like workplace reform, government reform, etc....

Gentle Readers,
Forget about China, we may all be ass-hammered. I occasionally look at the Baltic Dry Index as an indicator of the general health and trends of world trade. This presumably indicates economic health of world trade as a "cost of shipping" dry cargo stuff here and there over the oceans.

Well, the BDIY dropped 2.85% yesterday. This drop is starting to get to 2008 levels. The BDIY can and does change quickly due to the mostly static number of ships that carry dry bulk stuff like ores and things. BDIY goes down even with the price of oil going past $100? NFG.

Regards,
Roidy
P.S. Speaking of rim jobs, Davos is on for this week. Our Masters are deciding our fate - again. It gives me a warm, loved feeling that Billionaires are discussing what is best for me since I am incapable of making my own decisions and charting my own course. Not to put too fine a spin on it, but I don't see these shit-sucking assholes having anything but their own self-destructive interests in mind. Their cruelty wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so banal.

Here is a chart of Hong Kong (one of China's top financial centers) banks' exposure to mainland China debt that can be viewed as a proxy for the China bubble:

Source: http://twitpic.com/71krv9 Published by Michael McDonough - Economist & Bloomberg Brief contributor

TechGromit says

Kevin says

one good war will take care of that.

With who? North China Vs South China? It's estimated that as many as 70 million people were killed in World War II. So if china's population is 1.3 billion and the population is roughly 56.25% male and 43.75% female (this would give you the 1 in 4 men unmarried ratio) that gives you a male population of about 730 million. So the war would have to be big enough to kill off 182 million men, roughly twice the size of World War II deaths.

30% of russian men 18-39 died in WWII, and there weren't even any nuclear weapons being used.

China's entire reason for having such a large population is to survive wars.

Kevin says

I'd be willing to bet large sums of money that when the robots are building everything, life will be better for everyone. The cost of manufactured goods will trend towards the cost of raw materials.

No, it will go more the Brave New World, 1984, We (Zamyatin) - it should be the way you describe. 90% of people should not be working now. That would mean kids would have parents again, and the losers at work wouldn't be there so the real smart/productive people can have work with passion. But instead, as 1984 described for us, we must keep the proles busy all the time. Children busy learning garbage. Mom and Dad working for 30 years to pay off the McMansion. Higher Education that most use as a drinking party.

We are going to be use perpetual War as a tool to justify the use of "labor."

"The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they need not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare. War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them. But this would provide only the economic and not the emotional basis for a hierarchical society. What is concerned here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work"

You think the upper echelons of societal power are going to allow the productivity of the world be used to free up for a second world wide renaissance? Then most would know how bad the system is screwing everyone.