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From: KPURCELL@liverpool.ac.UK (Kevin 'fractal' Purcell)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Technology Forecasting
Message-ID: <9002261749.AA12235@encore.encore.com>
Date: 26 Feb 90 16:30:15 GMT
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On 23 Feb 90 20:29:46 GMT William K. McFadden
(zephyr.ens.tek.com!tekfdi!videovax!bill@edu.washington.cs.beaver) said:

>In article <Feb.21.17.13.14.1990.1539@klaatu.rutgers.edu>
> 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

At this point there will be a breakpoint as standard ULSI production
techniques will have to be replaced with something better, e.g using
synchrotron radiation to move to smaller wavelenghths for making the patterns
in the resist coupled with better matching of masks to wafers.

Going beyond 64Mbytes features will need to be less than 100nm
then we real start to hit FUNDAMENTAL size limits such as the number of
electrons you can keep in a memory cell decreases and (of course) quantum
effects.

Around the millenium the paradigm of computing will have changed from this
pattern. I would expect to see memory more closely coupled to
the processing elements, with von neumann processors drifting out of fashion.

We may even have got somewhere with nanotechnology!

>1999  256M
>2002    1G
>2005    4G
>2007   16G
>2010   64G
>
>Bill McFadden    Tektronix, Inc.  P.O. Box 500  MS 58-639  Beaverton, OR  97077

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Kevin 'fractal' Purcell ...................... kpurcell @ liverpool.ac.uk
             Surface Science Centre, Liverpool University
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"It is time that knowledge became more accessible to those to whom it
properly belongs"  -- James Burke, _The Day the Universe Changed_