| Author |
Message |
Keith R. Williams
Guest
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 Posted:
Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:15 pm Post subject:
Re: photonic x86 CPU design |
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In article <r2esk1dfkbnv7atuenmn8p5h7k66spcq03@4ax.com>, fammacd=!
SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com says...
| Quote: | On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 06:30:38 GMT, Maynard Handley <name99@name99.org
wrote:
|
<snip>
| Quote: | The problem is not (or mostly not) the generation of the light, it is
the switching based on the light. Pretty much all the technologies
available to do this suck in one way or another.
And, of course, it's pretty much irrelevant whether they get a photonics
CPU to work or not. Hook up your fancy 100GHz CPU to existing RAM, and
the results aren't going to impress anyone much.
Hey, you could hook the bugger up directly to some of that holographic
memory I've been hearing great things about... for the past x0 years
(choose x according to your age).
I first heard about holographic storage "proposed"[*] for the |
Illiac IV in the mid '60s.
[*] not sure it was serious
--
Keith |
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koko
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:15 pm Post subject:
Re: photonic x86 CPU design |
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On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 03:31:09 +0200, keith <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
| Quote: | I understand flashlights (when the power company wants the bill paid),
but mirrors?
|
You need a lot of little shiny objects in this line of business.
--
the penguins are psychotic
aka just smile and wave |
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koko
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:15 pm Post subject:
Re: photonic x86 CPU design |
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On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 12:45:28 +0200, George Macdonald
<fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Hey, you could hook the bugger up directly to some of that holographic
memory I've been hearing great things about... for the past x0 years
(choose x according to your age).
|
you mean Diamond/ruby/gas based? The one workind in labs today ?
--
the penguins are psychotic
aka just smile and wave |
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Bill Davidsen
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 14, 2005 12:15 am Post subject:
Re: photonic x86 CPU design |
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Nick Maclaren wrote:
| Quote: | In article <1129125818.308578.163030@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"Nathan Bates" <nathanbates99@yahoo.com> writes:
|> >As soon as I hear photonics in relation to CPUs, I immediately think
|> scam.
|
|> Manufacturing a CPU on silicon was an enormous scam.
|> Just melt worthless sand into tiny wafers and sell each one for $1,000.
A long time back, someone wrote an article about the forthcoming
silicon shortage, if computer use kept expanding.
|> Seriously, here's an intriguing article mentioning
|> Intel, AMD, FreeScale, and Transmeta regarding photonics:
|> http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1779951,00.asp
Sigh. Most of that is about the electro-optical converters,
which are produced in large numbers today but are not scalable.
If Luxtera or anyone else can manage to integrate those with
CPUs, it would make massive difference to interconnects and
might even be used inside a chip to reduce latency.
|
My first thought was HyperTransport. But 10GHz isn't that fast... people
are using that for ethernet in labs, based on silicon.
| Quote: |
|> Thru design to tape-out, a new x86 CPU based on CMOS technology
|> will take 3 years min to develop. A photonic x86 will take much
|> longer,
|> maybe 5..7 years, and expect a rate of advancement of photonic
|> technology.
|> Sounds like the classic gamble for Silicon Valley VCs.
Complex optical logic is another game. Yes, maybe 5-7 years.
But also maybe 50-70. Sane people don't believe tight schedules
for developing new, known to be difficult, technology.
|
--
bill davidsen
SBC/Prodigy Yorktown Heights NY data center
http://newsgroups.news.prodigy.com |
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Bill Davidsen
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 14, 2005 12:15 am Post subject:
Re: photonic x86 CPU design |
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Yousuf Khan wrote:
| Quote: | Bill Davidsen wrote:
I spent a few decades at a major R&D lab, research is proving it can
be done, development is finding out how. There's a lot of engineering
needed to get photonic computing going. Just as a first thought, I
would think that a RISC design would be easier to emulate if that were
a goal.
Or some kind of an embedded RISC core, with no FPU or stuff like that.
We are in agreement on that one. Note my earlier post on x86 emulation. |
--
bill davidsen
SBC/Prodigy Yorktown Heights NY data center
http://newsgroups.news.prodigy.com |
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Eric P.
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Gavin Scott
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 14, 2005 12:15 am Post subject:
Re: photonic x86 CPU design |
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In comp.arch Maynard Handley <name99@name99.org> wrote:
| Quote: | And, of course, it's pretty much irrelevant whether they get a photonics
CPU to work or not. Hook up your fancy 100GHz CPU to existing RAM, and
the results aren't going to impress anyone much.
|
That was what came to mind here.
If you ignore that however and also assume that a first generation
photonic product wouldn't be able to support the complexity of a
modern x86 chip, would there be a market for a 100GHz 8086? Or
80386, etc.? Would you be willing to run Windows 3.1 again if it
ran 20x faster than XP on a traditional modern x86?
G. |
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David Schwartz
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 14, 2005 12:15 am Post subject:
Re: photonic x86 CPU design |
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"Gavin Scott" <gavin@allegro.com> wrote in message
news:11ktl7s3htgs977@news.supernews.com...
| Quote: | If you ignore that however and also assume that a first generation
photonic product wouldn't be able to support the complexity of a
modern x86 chip, would there be a market for a 100GHz 8086? Or
80386, etc.? Would you be willing to run Windows 3.1 again if it
ran 20x faster than XP on a traditional modern x86?
G.
|
It doesn't work that way. The question is based on lots of false
premises.
DS |
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Bill Davidsen
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 14, 2005 12:15 am Post subject:
Re: photonic x86 CPU design |
|
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Gavin Scott wrote:
| Quote: | In comp.arch Maynard Handley <name99@name99.org> wrote:
And, of course, it's pretty much irrelevant whether they get a photonics
CPU to work or not. Hook up your fancy 100GHz CPU to existing RAM, and
the results aren't going to impress anyone much.
That was what came to mind here.
If you ignore that however and also assume that a first generation
photonic product wouldn't be able to support the complexity of a
modern x86 chip, would there be a market for a 100GHz 8086? Or
80386, etc.? Would you be willing to run Windows 3.1 again if it
ran 20x faster than XP on a traditional modern x86?
|
The question would be irrelevant if it reflected the reality of the
hardware. Given a CPU 20x faster than state of the art at that time you
could run an X86 emulator on it and the real instruction set wouldn't
matter, it would still be faster than current. If it were some subset of
x86 that's a bonus, not a requirement. You don't say "cost effective"
but the assumption is there, I think, 20x faster in any usable way would
probably do it.
If a photonic computer of reasonable speed and cost existed, I suspect
that there would be a quick port of at least one O/S to it and x86 would
be come history in the high end market. Clearly if you port something
like Linux you get a lot of tools which either just work or work with
little effort. That's because there are 32 and 64 bit versions in use so
many of the problems have been fixed already.
You could assume that if someone were building any new CPU today it
would be LSB order 2's complement, so even though there are assumptions
in some programs they are unlikely to fail.
I believe 32 bit Windows was ported to Alpha, so given a reason it could
be ported to a new CPU as well. I'm not sure that even a chance to own
the workstation market would be a reason, the Alpha market was too small
to support itself, and most buyers don't spend the money to buy the
fastest CPU available now.
The real question is if this new system would be so fast that people
would go to the effort to port anything BUT Linux, since it would have
to make sen$e to do so. Linux would get ported because (a) there are
lots of recent ports to serve as examples, (b) people will do it to
prove they can, and (c) you can get a grad student to do almost anything
for a little money and a thesis topic.
--
bill davidsen
SBC/Prodigy Yorktown Heights NY data center
http://newsgroups.news.prodigy.com |
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Yousuf Khan
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 14, 2005 12:15 am Post subject:
Re: photonic x86 CPU design |
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So how exactly does holographic memory work?
Yousuf Khan |
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koko
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 14, 2005 6:21 am Post subject:
Re: photonic x86 CPU design |
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On Fri, 14 Oct 2005 00:43:28 +0200, Bill Davidsen
<davidsen@deathstar.prodigy.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Yousuf Khan wrote:
Bill Davidsen wrote:
Or some kind of an embedded RISC core, with no FPU or stuff like that.
We are in agreement on that one. Note my earlier post on x86 emulation.
|
maybe, just maybe someone got their hands on this ones blueprints
(espionage?) http://www.lenslet.com/products.asp
--
the penguins are psychotic
aka just smile and wave |
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keith
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 14, 2005 7:25 am Post subject:
Re: photonic x86 CPU design |
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On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 13:17:54 -0700, Yousuf Khan wrote:
| Quote: | So how exactly does holographic memory work?
|
Do you mean "how is it *supposed* to work"?
Remember, you can cut a hologram in half and still have a complete
picture, though the S/N ratio is reduced. With this in mind, it's
really a method of spreading information over a wide area. Many
redundancy methods do similar things. It does sound kewll though. ;-)
--
Keith |
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keith
Guest
|
| Posted:
Fri Oct 14, 2005 7:26 am Post subject:
Re: photonic x86 CPU design |
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On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 16:04:31 +0200, koko wrote:
| Quote: | On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 12:45:28 +0200, George Macdonald
fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote:
Hey, you could hook the bugger up directly to some of that holographic
memory I've been hearing great things about... for the past x0 years
(choose x according to your age).
you mean Diamond/ruby/gas based? The one workind in labs today ?
|
"working?" What does it do, exactly.
--
Keith |
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keith
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 14, 2005 7:27 am Post subject:
Re: photonic x86 CPU design |
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On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 08:40:55 +0200, Ketil Malde wrote:
| Quote: | keith <krw@att.bizzzz> writes:
Jeez! After we get nuclear fusion tackled we'll not need photonics.
Processors can then scale to 1.21GW and there won't be any need for
photonics. Indeed, my money would be on Mr. Fusion first. After all,
it has a 50 year head start.
Well, if you have a 50 year head start, but are nowhere near the
finishing line, perhaps you are running in the wrong direction?
:-)
|
Well, CNF hasn't been around 50 years. Perhaps you'd rather invest in
that? ;-)
--
Keith |
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keith
Guest
|
| Posted:
Fri Oct 14, 2005 7:30 am Post subject:
Re: photonic x86 CPU design |
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On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 22:42:20 +0000, Bill Davidsen wrote:
| Quote: | Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article <1129125818.308578.163030@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"Nathan Bates" <nathanbates99@yahoo.com> writes:
|> >As soon as I hear photonics in relation to CPUs, I immediately think
|> scam.
|
|> Manufacturing a CPU on silicon was an enormous scam.
|> Just melt worthless sand into tiny wafers and sell each one for $1,000.
A long time back, someone wrote an article about the forthcoming
silicon shortage, if computer use kept expanding.
|> Seriously, here's an intriguing article mentioning
|> Intel, AMD, FreeScale, and Transmeta regarding photonics:
|> http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1779951,00.asp
Sigh. Most of that is about the electro-optical converters,
which are produced in large numbers today but are not scalable.
If Luxtera or anyone else can manage to integrate those with
CPUs, it would make massive difference to interconnects and
might even be used inside a chip to reduce latency.
My first thought was HyperTransport. But 10GHz isn't that fast... people
are using that for ethernet in labs, based on silicon.
|
With how many NAND4s inbetween clocks? GHz<>GHz.
--
Keith |
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