Introduction:
In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, the quest for more performance, greater computational power, and enhanced efficiency remains paramount, thanks to the guidance from moore’s law. Over the past 70 years, the journey from the humble beginnings of pocket radios to the cutting-edge server processors of today, boasting 90 billion transistors and 96 cores, illustrates the remarkable progress achieved.
As we gather at events like the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) to reflect on this journey, it becomes evident that the collaborative efforts of the ecosystem have propelled us to unprecedented heights.
This blog post delves into the significant advancements made over the past decade, the trends shaping the future of computing, and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead featuring Lisa Su, CEO, AMD.
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How has Moore’s Law Fared in Last 10 years?
Over the last decade, the semiconductor industry has witnessed a remarkable surge in performance across various domains. From personal devices like smartphones and tablets to high-performance supercomputing, the demand for increased processing power has been relentless.
The state-of-the-art server processors, equipped with advanced process technology and innovative packaging architectures, exemplify the culmination of years of research and development efforts. Notably, the transition from a billion to 90 billion transistors within a decade underscores the exponential growth in computational capabilities.
Trends in Performance Improvement w.r.t Moore’s Law:
1. CPU & Moore’s Law
When examining performance trends over the past decade, the data collected presents a comprehensive view of the industry landscape, encompassing major players such as AMD, Intel, and other processor vendors.
Despite occasional fluctuations above or below the expected trajectory, there has been a consistent trend of performance improvement, roughly doubling every two to two and a half years.
This is particularly noteworthy in light of discussions surrounding the slowdown of Moore’s law. Nevertheless, the industry has witnessed substantial innovation in areas such as architecture, packaging, die sizes, and power management, facilitating this sustained growth.
Read More: 4 Reasons why Moore’s Law Might be Dead, Finally!
2. GPU & Moore’s Law
Similar patterns are observed in GPU performance, with doubling occurring approximately every two to two and a half years over the past decade. These trends underscore the significant advancements achieved in both processor and graphics technologies.
These advancements not only benefit traditional computing tasks but also play a pivotal role in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.
Read More: What is Moore’s Law, More than Moore, and Beyond Moore?
3. What about supercomputers & Moore’s Law in High-Performance Computing:
When considering the confluence of advancements, one finds it particularly enlightening to focus on high-performance supercomputing, a domain renowned for its complexity. Here, the objective is clear: to construct the most powerful computers on the planet, capable of tackling the most formidable scientific and business challenges. This serves as a litmus test for the state of technological progress, revealing the extent to which boundaries of advancement can be pushed.
Over the past decade and beyond, a remarkable evolution has been witnessed in the realm of supercomputers. Despite the fact that individual components such as processors and GPUs double in performance every two to two and a half years, the aggregate progress on a system level is even more impressive.
By harnessing larger systems, embracing parallelism to a greater extent, enhancing power and interconnectivity capabilities, nearly annual doubling in computational power has been achieved.
This achievement is nothing short of astonishing, illustrating the collective ability to extract maximum performance from cutting-edge technology.
Read More: Why Moore’s law is not a law?
Conclusion:
In conclusion, the past decade has witnessed remarkable advancements in computing, driven by relentless innovation and collaboration. From the evolution of processor architectures to the emergence of exascale supercomputing, the journey has been nothing short of extraordinary.
Image Credit: ISSSC Youtube Channel.