Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!uw-beaver!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tekfdi!videovax!bill From: bill@videovax.tv.tek.com (William K. McFadden) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Technology Forecasting Message-ID: <5726@videovax.tv.tek.com> Date: 23 Feb 90 20:29:46 GMT References: <2357@kodak.UUCP> <9002202306.AA05591@world.std.com> Reply-To: bill@videovax.tv.tek.com (William K. McFadden) Organization: Tektronix TV Measurement Systems, Beaverton OR Lines: 36 In article josh@klaatu.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) writes: > >what 1980 1990 extrapolation 2000 >processor >memory(dram) >bits/chip 16k 4M x256 1G This is the only one of your figures I've been tracking over the years. My personal rule-of-thumb says memory capacity quadruples about every three years. I'm not sure of the first few dates, but I predict the following trend: 1978 16K 1981 64K 1984 256K 1987 1M 1990 4M 1993 16M 1996 64M 1999 256M 2002 1G 2005 4G 2007 16G 2010 64G These dates are those for mass production, not first silicon in the lab. Also, they are approximate and of course speculative, especially the latter ones. However, last year I saw an overhead from a major DRAM manufacturer predicting size increases (including the 64G size!) that almost exactly matched my rule of thumb. Remember, this advice is worth every cent you paid for it! -- Bill McFadden Tektronix, Inc. P.O. Box 500 MS 58-639 Beaverton, OR 97077 bill@videovax.tv.tek.com, {hplabs,uw-beaver,decvax}!tektronix!videovax!bill Phone: (503) 627-6920 "The biggest difference between developing a missle component and a toy is the 'cost constraint.'" -- John Anderson, Engineer, TI