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From: dave@micropen.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Will caches ever become obsolete?
Message-ID: <160@micropen>
Date: Tue, 3-Mar-87 10:15:15 EST
Article-I.D.: micropen.160
Posted: Tue Mar  3 10:15:15 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Mar-87 22:18:03 EST
References: <3182@wateng.UUCP>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Micropen Direct Writing Systems, Pittsford, NY
Lines: 26
Keywords: cache, coherence problems
Summary: Economics not electronics, per se

In article <3182@wateng.UUCP>, hmthaker@wateng.UUCP (Hemi M. Thaker) writes:
> 
>      In other words, will all the research being conducted
> for the cache coherency problems be a waste?  Could the
> research done for multi-cache coherency be applied elsewhere?
>              Hemi Thaker
> UUCP  : {allegra,decvax,utzoo,clyde}!watmath!wateng!hmthaker

Interesting case but this is not a question of electronics but of economics.
For any given technology one chooses to implement a machine in, there will
*always* be a technology faster, smaller, cooler or whatever.  The only 
"problem" with the technology is that it will always be unfavorably expensive
to built the entire machine out of-- but just a bit for cache will make
the budget if engineering promises large gains for small investment.
There will always be a way of making a cache memory for a system that 
will be faster than the main memory.  
		MOS -> TTL -> ECL -> GaAs -> Josephson -> ???

So the answer is no, they're will be cache until engineers don't want to
squeeze that last bit from the technology they are using.

-- 
David F. Carlson, Micropen, Inc.
...!{seismo}!rochester!ur-valhalla!micropen!dave

"The faster I go, the behinder I get." --Lewis Carroll