Robotic Nation Evidence

Bigger and Faster

Nanolitho effort harnesses self-assembly

From the article:

Nanoscale patterning of silicon substrates with regular, repeatable, atomically perfect application- specific templates could enable manufacturable nanoscale chips within the decade, according to scientists at the University of Wisconsin's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (Madison)... "In storage alone, our work could someday result in a computer with 4,000 Gbytes of memory," said Wisconsin-MRSEC director Juan de Pablo.

4 Terabytes of memory by 2020 is not an unreasonable expectation.

PlayStation 3 Chip Nears Completion

From the article:

Collaborating engineers from IBM, Sony, and Toshiba have wrapped up the design for the inner workings of a mysterious new chip called "Cell." The new multimedia processor, touted as a "supercomputer on a chip," is well on its way to completion, IBM says... While the processor's design is still under wraps, the companies say Cell's capabilities will allow it to deliver 1 trillion calculations per second (teraflop) or more of floating-point calculations. It will have the ability to do north of 1 trillion mathematical calculations per second, roughly 100 times more than a single Pentium 4 chip running at 2.5GHz.

Production of the "Cell" chip is expected to begin in 2004. If we have 1 Teraflop processors in 2004, we will have 100 Teraflops or more in 2020, and human-equivilent Petaflop processors by 2030.

Hard-disk drive industry braces for technology changes

From the article:

As opposed to longitudinal recording, where the bits are impressed in a parallel format along the surface of a disc, perpendicular recording stands the bits on end, enabling more data storage per square inch. Perpendicular recording will be required at the point when products reach capacities of about 100- to 200Gbits per sq. in., compared to approximately 50Gbits today, industry observers said. "Once we master perpendicular recording, it will be the foundation for the industry up to the point of approaching 1Tbit per sq. in.," said Seagate's Gentry.

Prototypes using perpendicular recording have been produced. Manufacturers are working right now to improve reliability. The article indicates, "The HDD industry had been increasing recording density at a rate of 100% per year, but because of the increasing difficulty in longitudinal recording, we now have an outlook of more like 60%." At a 60% per year improvement rate, we will be buying 300 Terabyte drives for $300 in 2020. If perpendicular recording (and subsequent technologies) pushes improvement rates back up to 100% per year, we will be buying 10 Petabyte drives in 2020.

See also: Using holograms to store data in memories that are both fast and vast