http://ask.metafilter.com/tags/moore'slaw Questions tagged with 'moore'slaw' at Ask MetaFilter. Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:44:28 -0800 Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:44:28 -0800 en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 http://ask.metafilter.com/89723/Fords%2DLaw Is there a precursor to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law">Moore's Law</a> for internal combustion engines? If so, can you provide details, please? tag:ask.metafilter.com,2008:site.89723 Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:44:28 -0800 auto automobile car engine internalcombustion law moore'slaw Exchequer http://ask.metafilter.com/78227/Why%2Ddid%2DCPUs%2Dstop%2Dgetting%2Dfaster%2Dabout%2D5%2Dyears%2Dago Why are CPUs not getting faster any more? <a href="http://www.chem.utoronto.ca/~nlipkowi/pictures/clockspeeds.gif">This plot</a> is some data I scraped from a few sources around the web. I know it's not exhaustive, but I'm looking to pick out long-term and general trends. It's clear to me that processor clock speed has plateau'ed around roughly 4 GHz. <b>Why?</b> I am aware of Moore's law, and the megahertz myth, and things like bus speeds and cache sizes and instruction sets and that comparing clock speeds across processors isn't especially meaningful. I know that Intel stopped pumping up the clock cycles, I know about pipelining and predictive branching and multiple cores and which bottlenecks are where in a computer.. I understand that despite the CPU speed flattening, actual computing power has continued to increase.<br> <br> However, surely if a chip designer <i>can</i> run the core at a faster clock, they would. Why can't they? <br> <br> My understanding was that this was essentially an issue of thermal management: faster switching + fixed settle time = more current = more resistive heating. <br> <br> However, someone else pointed out to me recently that this might be an issue with the RC time constant of the interconnects on the chip.<br> <br> Ideally i'd like to find an article about this phenomenon from an EE/physics point of view, preferably from someone in the industry. Most preferable would be in a journal or IEEE publication; a trade magazine would be good too. An article in something like Wired would be okay, but I need to cite a source and the popular press is notoriously bad when it comes to this sort of thing.<br> <br> However, my googlefu is really failing me here, so any explanation or pointer to search terms, or really anything of help would be greatly appreciated.<br> <br> Thanks! tag:ask.metafilter.com,2007:site.78227 Sun, 09 Dec 2007 16:35:08 -0800 clock computer cpu cycle gigahertz law megahertz moore's moore'slaw processor speed trends sergeant sandwich