IBM Builds Nanotube Chip

Red Herring ^ | 3/23/06

[Paul C. Jesup]

The limitations of this technology are obvious. We are nearing the end of viability with silicone. As I was looking at this server, I was thinking: "Sure wouldn't want that in a laptop roasting the old chestnuts."

Actually, we are reaching the limitation of silicone technology as we us it today. But when we get carbon nanotube technology downpat. The next great technological leap will be silicone nanotube technology (far smaller than carbon nanotubes) than can carry and are thinner than lightwaves.

[IamConservative]

I believe the heat is generated by the Pentium D/T the Math coprocessor on the same chip as the CPU. Great speed - great heat. Would it slow things down to much to separate them again or is the heat penalty worth it, for miniaturization purposes? Your thoughts, please, oh leaned one, for I am barely knowledgeable of these facts.

I do not know that much of the internals. In fact, we don't pay much attention to them because they do not accurately reflect what the performance will be for a given application. The Pentium D chip consists of two Pentium 4 Prescott dies in a single package. The processors work as two independent CPU's. The Pentium 4 with H/T technology is a single core chip that enables multi-threaded software applications to execute two software threads in parallel.

Depending on your application, hyperthreading may provide no increase in performance. Applications which benefit from H/T include transcoding, compression, encryption, etc. which require a lot of floating point operations.

If you want faster desktop application computing, the P4D is likely your best choice. If you do a lot of multi-media, game playing and handle your audio and video, the P4 H/T may give you better performance.

As to the heat, most of the machines we work with have 300-500 Watt power supplies. I do scalability testing. My intent is to find the maximum capability of the server. In any given server, there is a weakest link. Could be non-paged memory, paged memory, disk I/O, etc. For my purpose, it doesn't matter what it is, it just matters that we know what it's maximum capabilities are. The harder we push them, the hotter they get.

Hopefully that was of some help. If it didn't help answer your specific question, Intel does have very good doc on the chips. If you are really interested in the chips, look at the AMD Opteron.

[RadioAstronomer]

Under high load, the air coming off of the heat sync is similar in volume and temperature to that of a hair dryer.

Eventually, liquid cooling is the way we will have to go. Cooled Fluorinert comes to mind. Many home computers now cool both the central and graphics processors with water as apposed to fans. Much quieter. I am headed in that direction myself.

[IamConservative]

Actually, we are reaching the limitation of silicone technology as we us it today. But when we get carbon nanotube technology downpat. The next great technological leap will be silicone nanotube technology (far smaller than carbon nanotubes) than can carry and are thinner than lightwaves.

Absolutely. I wasn't really clear as to how my comment related to the article, but, we need a revolution to advance technology, evolution of silicon is at an end. That IBM is looking for it is very exciting. IBM did extensive research on quantum computing as well. Not sure what is happening with that.

The first computer I repaired had tubes w/ 256 bytes of ferrite core memory and the drive had a hydraulic positioning mechanism and stored 2.5MB. I certainly hope I get the opportunity to purchase a silicon nanotube laptop. The "roasting my chestnuts" was not a completely meaningless observation! :)

[RadioAstronomer]

I believe the heat is generated by the Pentium D/T the Math coprocessor on the same chip as the CPU. Great speed - great heat. Would it slow things down to much to separate them again or is the heat penalty worth it, for miniaturization purposes?

Bus speeds are one of the limiting factors. We already have:

CPU - Central Processor unit (multiple cores)
GPU - Graphics processor Unit (with multiple pipelines etc)
DSP Sound co-processors (XFi processor comes to mind, 51 million transistors)
PPU - Physics Processor -Unit (Physx)

All told, just those processors alone (ignoring the rest of the computer) are starting to push a billion transistors by themselves.

[RadioAstronomer]

After having read what I just wrote - MAN AM I OLD OR WHAT.

We both are. I had an S-100 computer with hand soldered daughter boards using an 8080 CPU and front panel switches back in the late 70s. :-)

Used an ASR-33 Teletype as my terminal. Had to build a conveter unit that converted 20Ma current loop to RS-232 to allow them to talk to each other.

[RadioAstronomer]

Actually, we are reaching the limitation of silicone technology as we us it today.

Not quite yet. :-) 45 nm is on the way.

[kevkrom]

DON'T PANIC! It will be plugged into your ear, and be powered by your brain waves.

So... unusable by liberals, then?

[Rebelbase]

That thing is so small new born babies won't even have a reaction to it when they are chipped with their Social Security number before leaving the hospital.

[FOG724]

Eventually, liquid cooling is the way we will have to go.

A friend of mine and his son experimented with water cooled computers. They had a heat sink that would freeze the components it was so cold. It was interesting to watch.

[TheRightGuy]

A Model 1, Level 2, with 16k memory was $999.99. and if you wnated a 8" single sided, single density 'floppy' disc it was a$1500 more. A dot matrix printer of 132 characters was $700. An 80 Character printer was about $$499 if memeory serves me correectly.

I remember paying close to $600 for my Hayes 1200b internal modem.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

We are nearing the end of viability with silicone.

Just my luck! I just spent a bunch on sand futures!

[ShadowAce]

[zeugma]

silicone technology

Well, from what I've heard, these days it almost feels like the real thing!

I believe you and the previous poster meant silicon. The extra "e" makes it an entirely different substance. 

I'm off to confiscate extra "e"s from the rest of the thread. Sees ya! 

[zeugma]

my next major upgrade is going to see water cooling for sure. There are some neat ways of implementing it these days.

[antiRepublicrat]

Even then, IBM’s prototype clocks only at 50 megahertz. The fastest chip on the market today is a 3.8-gigahertz Pentium 4 by Intel.

But I'll be it uses something like less than 1/1000th the power.

[ßuddaßudd]

Power Management is hot these days.

[Still Thinking]

DON'T PANIC! It will be plugged into your ear, and be powered by your brain waves.

Hmmm. The whole tinfoil concept is going to need some refinement with a cell phone inside your head.

[Still Thinking]

With a computer based on these, you could get a BSOD in half the time, and not use as much power doing it!

[redhead]

"BTW; my first computer was a TRS-80, Mod 1, Level 1, 4 k memory, and Tiny BASIC. With a black and white monitor (TV with no channels) and a tape drive for storage. When you turned it off, you lost everything. Not event he latest model in 1980, but at $599.99 at radio shack, it was all I could afford. A Model 1, Level 2, with 16k memory was $999.99. and if you wnated a 8" single sided, single density 'floppy' disc it was a$1500 more. A dot matrix printer of 132 characters was $700. An 80 Character printer was about $$499 if memeory serves me correectly. Aaafter having read what I just wrote - MAN AM I OLD OR WHAT?"

Yup. You're obviously as old as I am, so I'd say you were old. But I had a similar first computer, so I know what you're saying. Dot-matrix printing...mmmmmm!!