Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: ATTACK OF KILLER MICROS (Actual
Message-ID: <1753@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 22 Nov 89 13:13:56 GMT
References: <221@dg.dg.com> <3300084@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 22

In article <3300084@m.cs.uiuc.edu> nelson@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes:

| As it all comes down, it seems that our lower bound is on the order
|   of 10 picoseconds for a cycle time in a processor.  Other parts
|   would obviously have a lower lower bound.

  I think your lower bound is too high. I believe that _Electronics
News_ had an article about a 200GHz counter. My subscription lapsed two
years ago.

  There is a lower limit, because you have to make things smaller (as
you said), and when the diameter of a conductor becomes small enough it
becomes an excercise in probability to see if an electron put in one end
comes out the other. An article a few years ago claimed that this occurs
at about 17 orders of magnitude smaller and faster than a Cray2.

  Warning: The only thing I'm sure is true is that the article said so ;-)
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon