Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!sco!seanf
From: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Clock Rates (was ATTACK OF KILLER MICROS)
Keywords: GHz HEMT ECL clock liquid nitrogen
Message-ID: <3897@scolex.sco.COM>
Date: 24 Nov 89 23:04:06 GMT
References: <221@dg.dg.com> <3300084@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <1753@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <7076@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan)
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Lines: 32

In article <7076@pt.cs.cmu.edu> lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes:
>nelson@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>>> If you project the slope of the clock rates of supercomputers, you
>>> will see sub-nanosecond CYCLE times before 1995.
>> Actually, I don't see this (dare I say it) EVER occuring. 
>Oh ye of little faith!
>Many major labs have built ring
>oscillators at 20 ps or below.

And don't forget protein-based logic.  (Yeah, yeah:  jokes of 'don't forget
to feed it!' abound.)  CMU had, a few years ago, announced some
protein-based RAM and a NAND gate.  The RAM had an access time of, if I
remember correctly, something like 3 picoseconds, and the NAND gate was at
something like 6 picoseconds.  They were using lasers to access and change
the states; the protein just stored it (as large as protein molecules are,
they are orders of magnitude *smaller* than any current circuit).  *If* this
pans out (and I believe that either Cray Research or Cray Computer is
looking into it), it could be *very* significant.

So, yes, you could end up with a Cray-7, with 16384 processors
(extrapolating from the trend of the past 3), and deity alone knows how much
memory, all on your desk.  But don't forget to feed it 8-).

(Seriously:  I don't know enough about current research to say whether it
would work or not.  Initial results show it *might* work, and might work
soon enough and cheaply enough to be a viable research project, but that's
all I know.)

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "Time has little to do with infinity and jelly donuts."
seanf@sco.COM    |    -- Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck), _Magnum, P.I._
(408) 458-1422   | Any opinions expressed are my own, not my employers'.