Originally posted by ahnggk
Manufacturers are actually forcing themselves to conform to Moore's law, thus we now have multi-core processors!! It's partly a prophecy but mostly a manufacturer's goal. I think it's no longer a prophetic vision but a manufacturing standard!
I have to disagree though that these are bright days for humanity. I know technology very intimately but high tech only serves to dumb people down unfortunately. Yes we have the internet but look at what most are using the internet for! It's nothing but mindless chatters. We don't even try to ponder what goes under the hood.
IMO, Multiple processors were inevitable but it's important to remember what Moore's Law actually states. Computing power can always be multiplied by combining multiple processors together. But with regard to Moore's Law, it's a little more complicated than that.
Moore's Law
The observation made in 1965 by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since the integrated circuit was invented. Moore predicted that this trend would continue for the foreseeable future. In subsequent years, the pace slowed down a bit, but data density has doubled approximately every 18 months, and this is the current definition of Moore's Law, which Moore himself has blessed. Most experts, including Moore himself, expect Moore's Law to hold for at least another two decades.
You can have any one processor, add more of the same and increase your overall computing power. But what wouldn't change whether you have 1, 2, 3, or 4 of the same processors is how many transistors they have per square inch. That is going to be the same whether you have 1 processor or 4 of those same processors.
But I do see your point with regards to manufacturing. Part of it has to do with customer demand and expectation.
If computing technology begins to slow down and computing power by integrated circuit doesn't grow that much over time.. The customers are still going to want more power. That seems to be the rule, at least. So it only seems feasible to combine multiple processors together when technological advancement slowly approches a brick wall as far as how many transistors per square inch can comprise an integrated circuit. And if one company is doing this, another company can't compete if they can't match that power with one processor. So then all of the computer manufacturers start putting multiple processors in their computers. It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy of the technology industry.
SO, alot of why computing power is progressing in the marketplace isn't so much because of the progression of Moore's Law. It's also because of the number of processors that can be combined to multiply the overall computing power of any one system. And the reason that is happening is because of demand and consumer expectation. People like me always want the most advanced computer possible when they go looking to buy. Combining multiple processors can cause people to bite on a sale since the computing power can be orders of magnitude over other computers with a single processor.
-ChriS
[edit on 11-6-2009 by BlasteR]
Something just doesn't sound right about that
