Robotic Nation Evidence

Many examples of Moore's Law this week:

• AMD demos first dual-core processor - "The chips -- which contain two processor cores and 1M byte of Level 2 cache for each core -- use the same 940-pin socket used by AMD's single-core Opteron processors manufactured with a 90-nanometer process, according to information posted on the AMD's Web site. This compatibility will allow HP, Sun Microsystems Inc. and IBM Corp. to incorporate dual-core Opterons in existing systems that are designed for the Opteron, AMD said."
  
  
• Intel's 65nm chip will make laptops go further - "Intel has built a fully functional 70Mb static random access memory (SRam) chip with more than half a billion transistors, using 65nanometer (nm) process technology."
  
  
• Computer hard drives perform better, last longer with novel polyester lubricant
  
  
• NIST Unveils Chip-Scale Atomic Clock - "The heart of a minuscule atomic clock—believed to be 100 times smaller than any other atomic clock—has been demonstrated by scientists at the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), opening the door to atomically precise timekeeping in portable, battery-powered devices for secure wireless communications, more precise navigation and other applications."
  
  
• 96 Processors Under Your Desktop - "A small Santa Clara-based company, Orion Multisystems, today unveils a new concept in computing, 'cluster workstations.' In October, you'll be able to choose between a 12-processor unit for less than $10,000 and a 96-processor system for less than $100,000. These new systems are powered by Efficeon processors from Transmeta and are running Fedora Linux version 2.6.6."

The last one is interesting. It echoes the "workstation boom" in the 1980s, when players like Sun, Apollo, DEC, IBM, etc. battled it out for the scientific desktop with UNIX workstations.

This machine is not quite as impressive as it sounds at first. According to this page, an Efficeon is only about one-quarter as fast as a Pentium. So this machine might "only" be as powerful as a 20- or 25-Pentium workstation. The reason for using the Efficeon, despite its relative slowness, is its low wattage per calculation. If you put 25 Pentiums in a box, they would consume 3,000 or 4,000 watts -- it would blast you out of your office with the heat, and you would need to run a special 30-amp circuit to plug it in. For comparison, a typical electric clothes dryer uses 4,000 watts. By using Efficeon chips, at 8 watts per chip, the whole machine uses "only" as much power as a blow drier.

The thing that is interesting about this machine is the amount of horsepower it makes available in an "off-the-shelf" package. If history repeats itself, then in ten years this is the horsepower that a "normal" $500 desktop machine will have available. Along with many terabytes of storage space.

See Robotic Nation for details.