Ask HN: What are the next steps regarding processors technology?

6 pointsromgrk6y ago5 comments

Given that Moore's law has come to an end and it's not doable to keep shrinking stuff, where will the next improvements regarding processors be made?

5 comments

thedevindevops6y ago

Optical Processors, FGPA 'reconfigurable hardware', 3d layering, Quantum processors (if they ever go commercial), Neurochips (rat-brain-neural-network-on-a-chip for specialist hardware applications). If hardware devs ever run out of ideas we may even have to go back to resource-efficient programming!

p1esk6y ago

Next couple of generations will still be "shrinking stuff", after that it will be "new stuff" (e.g. graphene) and "stacking stuff" (3D integration).

sgillen6y ago

Specialization. We're already seeing specialized processors take over niches of compute (Googles TPU, bitcoin ASICs, GPUs etc etc). I think we'll see this trend accelerate.

imakwana6y ago

2017 ACM Turing Award Lecture by Hennessy and Patterson nicely summarizes the emphasis on domain-specific languages and domain-specific architectures going forward. https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2019/2/234352-a-new-golden-ag...

johnsimer6y ago

Have any of you here looked into neuromorphic computing and Spiky Neural Networks? Do these show any promise?

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