Cringley: Chip Manufacturing To Radically Change 141
eshefer writes "
This week cringely talks about a company called rolltronics which he claims will make the current microprocessor fabrication on silicon wafers technology defunct in five years. The company uses roll-to-roll printing on plastic (somewhat like newspaper printing presses) making the process much cheaper to produce then current technologies. "
Whoa, hang on there! (Score:2)
Why do you need 1 CPU clocked at 1 GHz... if you can have 1000 CPUs clocked at 1 megahertz?
Think about it. Ever heard of the 'connection machine'? Web printing of CPUs at unprecedentedly low costs is a situation that _begs_ for massively parallel computing.
Suppose you could print up a big screen and behind every pixel is a 1 megahertz computer? Let's see- let's imagine the screen is three feet high and... well, any length, right? Make it as wide as your room. Call it 30 dpi and assume you're viewing it from a fair distance. That's 1080x4320 pixels (or so) for 3x12 feet. If each pixel's running a computer at about 1 megahertz that's more than four thousand gigahertz of CPU ;) _and_ you can paper your wall with it.
Yes, getting _information_ to those clever pixels would be the trick, but it's not an insuperable problem. The CPUs can be pretty smart at one megahertz. Give them a few K of ram too, think of them as like a peculiar sort of 'accelerator card' only massively parallel. It's absolutely trivial to do hacks like Asimov's 'Prime Radiant': you'd just have each 'pixel' an alphanumeric generator able to consult an overall RAM location, a pointer to where in RAM to look, and with a brightness control connected to some gaze direction sensor. Presto, wall full of text that scrolls and becomes clearer and follows your gaze- and that is one of the _easiest_ things to do with this stuff.
Better to ask whether you could have a suitcase-sized block with several terabytes of _really_ _slow_ RAM (read: way faster than a HD, and impact proof!), for the cost of a floppy drive- after all, it's only a matter of printing more pages, right? Just keep piling up the 'slow RAM' pages. The same thing could be done as read-only: if you're OK with text, you could have a 'book' (i.e. an object with a screen on it) that is ANY book you like, with terabytes of data in it, printed so cheaply as to be virtually disposable. Look around at your books and ask yourself how much it'd cost you to have a _scribe_ write those out for you ;)
Ask whether the massively parallel 'screen' concept could be used for video game systems (imagine unrolling a wall-sized Quake, or flight sim- even if the quality is not ultra refined, some aspects of it would be as advanced over the current state of the art as the current state of the art is over software rendering- for instance, perhaps you'd have only solid colored triangles BUT the system would build them itself, being fed only very high level object information- and you'd get 100X or 100,000X the model geometric detail you can have today, because each pixel only 'sees' a couple triangles directly behind it and decides only what color it's going to be. So you wouldn't get 3Dfx motion blur but you'd get every leaf on every tree in the forest, as each pixel handles its own (emergent) geometry. Even if you only had Atari 2600 level pixel sophistication- think of the resolution! You could have new games designed to take advantage of that- like, I dunno, a Pac-Man that has just the one maze but it's the size of the wall :)
Or, each pixel knows how to do MPEG transforms- so you unroll a videophone or movie screen the size of your wall. Power's an issue, but if you can get wide enough traces... like a foot wide... a lot of power dissipation issues become less of a problem :) really, the idea has loads of possibilities that don't require heavy centralised processing.
Re:Doing the math (Score:2)
Re:Don't dismiss it out of hand (Score:2)
I could see similar uses in things like scanning, where you're dealing with a lot of parallel data anyhow. You could print some sort of processor that gets rolled up and stuck to the scanner's sensor bar, that interpolates and sharpens and does all sorts of nice image enhancements very cheaply- and have the scan go much faster than current models do. Output bandwidth would be the bottleneck- unless the rolled-up processor also encoded the result into JPEG for you :)
Innovator's Dilemma (Score:1)
If they get this technology to actually work commercially, it could destroy conventional chipmaking techniques. Sure, these things will be slower than normal chips. However as the book _Innovator's Dilemma_ clearly states, what usually happens is that this technology will end up filling a new niche on the low end. Take embedded systems. This plastic technology is a natural fit for that sort of thing. Sure, its slower but most embedded systems are not CPU hogs anyway, and the lower cost and higher production rates outweigh the disadvantages of the reduced processor speed. The manufacturers of this technology work on refining the density of the circuity they're printing on the plastic, improving performance. Slowly they start eroding at the conventional chip technology market from the bottom up. Chip makers keep giving up the low end as they focus on the high end.
The problem is you can't keep doing that forever. Sooner or later you run out of ground. So in a few decades, you might find that for everything but the luxury high performance end of things, all your circuits are printed plastic instead of etched silicon. That's how companies can get burned going with the "sure" technology and get blasted out of the market from below. The low end inevitabily eats up into the high end with cheap technology improvements.
Not that I'm saying this is going to happen. A lot depends on whether they can make this work commercially and how well the technology scales. But it could happen. Don't go dismissing it out of hand. The smart answer is 'wait and see'.
Re:Sorry...But I have to say these two things? (Score:1)
s/Why/Who/
Well atleast this crack smoking junkey corrected his mistakes
Sorry...But I have to say these two things? (Score:2)
2- Anita Borg, Ph.D. -- Product Innovation and Social Responsibility. Hehe. I just think it's too funny.
$15 computers and commericial operating systems (Score:4)
On the flip side, if the computers are 'disposable', then this might drive up interest in MS
Re:Ball Semi also interesting (Score:2)
Ball Semi also interesting (Score:3)
Re:Article is incorrect (Score:1)
Posts warning that their parent contains a disguised disgusting link may qualify as "off-topic" (though there are better uses for your mod points), but in no way is it fair or accurate to label them as "trolls".
Re:$15 computers and commericial operating systems (Score:1)
Or maybe it could be a loose-leaf binder type arrangement and we can keep on calling them "service packs".
Re:What happens (Score:1)
Re:Ball Semi also interesting (Score:1)
Re:Ball Semi also interesting (Score:1)
The humor of which, BTW, isn't diminished.
Re:Cringley doesn't go far enough (Score:1)
But human perception, in general, with respect to the number of pieces of information it can juggle at once, or the "gain" of a sensory organ, is restricted to only a few orders of magnitude, and in some instances only one order, so we percieve apparent "knees" in exponential phenomena. Preception of acoustic intensity is a classic example.
Context can also impose a frame of reference on an exponential effect. I'd like to elaborate but the boss just walked in...
Cringley doesn't go far enough (Score:2)
And it just may BE your shirt pocket. That's what Cringley probably knows but isn't saying - When it becomes that cheap to just "print" a computer, they'll be integrated into everything: refrigerators, automobiles, clothing, furniture, you name it. Sure, there will still be information appliances, but their purpose will evolve into enabling your coordination of all the other computers you will interact with throughout your day, from your own household accoutrements to public infrastructure to your employer and the internet at large.
It is going to make the world unrecognizeable.
Again.
And the amount of information that will need to be exchanged is going to make today's bandwidths look like trickles. Right now, we are at the knee of the exponential growth curve of the telecommunications market, and technology will keep up with demand as improvments in optical swithcing continue. Communication service is going to become more important than banking - hell, banking and finance has already become little more than information flowing around a network.
You want to be a part of it? Forget putting your money in the people who make computers. Invest in telecommunications, and the hardware that supports it. That's where the fortunes are going to be made.
Re:Semicond plastics not suitable for high density (Score:2)
These are just areas where we will see the incremental improvement that Cringley described.
Hell, in 1988, when I bought my first CD player, the hard drive couldn't store even one track from a CD. Now my hard drive holds dozens of ripped CDs, in many cases uncompressed.
Re:Doing the math (Score:2)
Let's fuck up Google Search! (Score:2)
SUB-20000 USER ID FOR FREE!
Don't dismiss it out of hand (Score:2)
So this limits the power of individual processors using this process, but you can go massively parallel, just add another processor page, or 3 or 10...
This may never produce a barnstormer of a computer, but it sounds promising for consumer electronics and web appliances.
-josh
Re:You have got to be kidding (Score:2)
You're thinking in terms of silicon. It's not a straight scale-up when you're changing the basic materials. It's my understanding that a polymer-based CPU of that size would generate less heat and use less power than a silicon-based CPU sized as they currently are.
Re:$15 computers and commericial operating systems (Score:2)
Interesting thought, but it doesn't necessarily follow. You can buy a pretty decently-made blank book for just a few dollars, but lots of people happily buy the latest hard-cover best-sellers for $20-$30 (US). (I might not think Windows Whatever will be worth the extra cost, but I don't think the latest John Grisham is worth $28, either.)
How this might not be bad (Score:3)
Re:$15 computers and commericial operating systems (Score:1)
True, but isn't Whislter being positioned to be the replacement for Win9x and NT? By the time this process is ready for mass market, MS will probably be trying to shove Whistler down everyones throats. Since it is next in line after the current NT releases, it's a good bet that it will cost as much or more than Win2000, which the Professional version has an MSRP of almost $400. Of course, if people are that in love with Wondows, they'll buy it, but the ones on the fence will most likely gravitate to some thing more affordable.
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Almost there (Score:1)
Technologies at this stage are often seen by themselves and out of context, but once out of the research stage there is nothing stopping them from being combined with other technologies to increase the number of possible applications.
These sort of technologies are what will help contribute to the invisible technologies - whereby they are there and made use of, but you won't notice them.
a possible problem with the concept (Score:2)
Re:Uh, oh. We've heard this before... (Score:1)
Science takes time, but it ALWAYS ALWAYS gets results. Project Apollo took, what, a whole 15 years to get people from primitive jet engines to walking on the moon. Who wants to wait that long?
Re:How this could be bad (Score:1)
Re:Why do you all do it? (Score:1)
Just like Mr. Simpson says. "It's pronounced noo-kyew-lar."
No, it's not an American thing. I bet there are people in other countries that have bad grammar too...I'm just not good enough (enuff?) at reading their languages to pick it up. And British authors...hell, they think car hoods are called bonnets and cookies are called biscuits! Never mind grey and colour. Or Aluminium (sic). Who can tell what those poofters (weirdos) think is a grammar error?
Re:Doing the math (Score:1)
Re:Uh, oh. We've heard this before... (Score:1)
I'm certainly not going to give them any money. : )
Re:Don't dismiss it out of hand (Score:1)
Or a library ?
Re:You don't think english as written, but in soun (Score:1)
Re:Why do you all do it? (Score:2)
Re:How this could be bad (Score:2)
I don't doubt that there would be an easy and economical way to recharge/reuse/replace the power cell.
Another company trying to make cheap computers (Score:3)
There was a Slashdot article [slashdot.org] about these guys over a year ago.
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Re:Computing hazard (Score:3)
GPF=Gallons per Flush
Fetch! (Score:2)
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Re:Uh, oh. We've heard this before... (Score:2)
Re:Uh, oh. We've heard this before... (Score:2)
So you're saying that we're not going to see any new technologies because it is rare for a new technology to become mainstream? That's ridiculous - of course we'll be seeing new technologies appear, sooner or later. Sure, most fail, but not all of them.
Re:You don't think english as written, but in soun (Score:2)
"Than" and "then" sound very different when spoken in a good old South African accent. In general though I don't have that problem at all, I've never had much of a problem with spelling. I think its a genetic thing or something, some (otherwise intelligent) people seem to struggle with spelling. Or maybe it has do with how much a person reads. Reads books, that is, not websites like slashdot.
Doing the math (Score:2)
The technology is aiming to be available 5 yrs from now (notice how long shots are always 5 yrs out)
The latest generation of microprocessors have around ?20?million transistors. 5yrs will give us 3 more doublings (assuming Moore's Law holds), so will be looking at replicationg 160mil transistors for the processor. 1Gig of Ram, add another billion. All the other circuitry, lets just make it simple and say that an average computer will have 1.5billion transistors in 2005.
A magazine has around 200 pages. So each page of this computer will have to hold something like 7.5million transistors (assuming an even distribution).
Assuming they can print at 300dpi (which I believe is high for mass printing) on 8inx11in media gives
300x8x300x11 = 7.92 million
This may look like it will pass until you consider that a transistor will take more than a pixel and then consider inter-transistor wiring. If this is enough they will barely be cutting the edge unless:
-they can print at higher resolution
-they can print more pages
I don't see the need anyway. Computers are cheap now. You can get one for $100. What's expensive are the latest processors, and they're not expensive because of production cost. It's recapturing the engineering cost that drives up the price. This will only produce $15 computers if someone is willing to pay $500million for the first one.
Re:Tech Limits on plastic (Score:1)
Re:Cringley doesn't go far enough (Score:1)
I don't want to live in a world where I have to sync a condom after usage in order to see the stats on it. I'd rather not know some things. And I definitely don't want to sync my t-shirt with everything else. Imagine hooking yourself up to the computer for a few minutes every morning... it'll be like taking an EKG (hooking up nodes to various parts of you). Screw that. The palm docking station is enough syncing for me. I'm a fruit of the loom guy... not a fruit of the valley.
______
everyone was born right-handed, only the greatest overcome it.
Cringley (Score:1)
I think, however, he missed the boat on this one. In an age where Geometries are shrinking by orders of ten, twenty or even a hundred, it is not inconcieveable that five years from now they will be talking about mass producing chips where their geometries are approaching the size of atoms.
The reason the printing press didn't change very much in three hundred years was because the people who sold it didn't have to worry about some guy down the street coming out with a better, simpler model. Intel and AMD do. I believe Bob is right when he talks about this company making something revelutionary, but I would bet money that these people are twenty years too late.
Re:Doing the math (Score:2)
-Ryan
Semicond plastics not suitable for high density (Score:5)
Advantages:
Drawbacks
A often-quoted great app is the head-up display for cars: a transparent set of electonic circuits that you glue on your windshield and contains its own display. UV protection films are mandatory for keeping the circuits from burning in the summer, but it looks feasable and cheaper than the usual optical projection solutions.
Don't sell that $12 million 193-nm optical stepper in your silicon fab, though. We're not there yet, especially for medium or high speed circuits.
Re:Sorry...But I have to say these two things? (Score:2)
I'm sure that every cutting-edge, change-the-industry startup company does their web site with Frontpage. I can't wait to see their saran-wrap substrate processors.
- - - - -
Re:Don't feel bad.... (Score:1)
There's a lot of inefficiency inherent in the modular assembly process exemplified by your run-of-the-mill laptop. The processor talks to memory over a small bus, the hard-drive knows little of what will be requested next...
This is all the case because traditional manufacuring needs to modularise in order to acheive high enough yeilds to be price-effective. Hence each component needs to be a fast as possible (thus the smaller feature size) to achieve acceptable performance.
If the entire logic circuit of the laptop could be printed in one go -- Extrelemely Large Scale Integrationed -- I'd imagine that we could compensate for the lower clock speed by exploiting paralellism and asycn clocking. Instead of printing only one CPU, print ten, each with their own memory. Give 'em a nice wide bus to communicate...
Of course, no-one said that designing or programming this beast would be easy.
Maybe good for linux? (Score:2)
Not newspaper.. low circulation magazines (Score:3)
Re:How this could be bad (Score:2)
I rent DVDs for $5, when with DIVX I could have "purchased" the physical item. Besides the convience of having it closer for more replays (paying the $5 again), or being able to buy it for life ($20), I have nothing when I return it to Blockbuster. And late fees? Pfft.
And what would have made DIVX even more tempting if it caught on was the opportunity to hack the player to play "expired" disks.
So what I'm saying here is.. I don't know what I'm saying. In DIVX it's a good idea, because a video disk is an item you'd perhaps rent. But for a computer? I like my comptuers big, grey, and power hungry. I'm barely sold on the concept of batteries, let alone in computers.
Certainly cool for some stuff (Score:1)
Really high density? (Score:2)
On the other hand there's a whole range of electronics out there where this sort of density is not an issue and this could make a lot of older fabs that are building this stuff redundant.
I could imagine a cool disk drive replacement with this technology - basicly a pile of mylar sheets - I bet you could get comparable densities at similar prices .... and you wouldn't have to spin them ....
Re:Whoa, hang on there! (Score:1)
The point I wanted to make was that the high-end laptop or desktop computer with submicron CMOS ICs is not going to be replaced anytime soon. Even if you could replace a 1 GHz CPU with 1000 CPUs operating at 1 MHz, your power requirements would not decrease (direct tradeoff of clock speed vs. number of transistors), and you'd need to write an operating system that could take advantage of a slow, massively-parallel processor. Also, as a previous poster pointed out, you wouldn't even get the 1 MHz clock speed, because the carrier mobility of the polymer semiconductors is much lower than silicon.
This manufacturing technique will find a niche, but we won't be stamping out general-utility PCs with it anytime soon.
It's not so easy as it might seem... (Score:2)
Now assume that your printing process needs transistors with 10 micron feature sizes to ensure proper registration and a high enough yield to be manufacturable. That increases your effective "die" to 956 square inches. (Area increases with the square of feature size.) That's equivalent to 10 sheets of single-sided paper.
For a multi-layer printing process, 10 layers of plastic sandwiched together would definitely be possible. HOWEVER - you are not going to be able to clock your circuit at 1 GHz! Because of the much larger size (and capacitance) of your circuit, you'll do well to get a 1 MHz clock speed (1000X slower).
While this process may be very useful for e-books, displays, etc., I don't see how any high-performance computing could be done with a microprocessor constructed with this technique. Your only alternative to slower clock speeds would be massive parallelism to achieve higher computational throughput. Assuming a direct tradeoff of speed versus number of transistors, you would need 10000 layers instead of 10 layers in your process. There goes your low manufacturing cost.
It's not just enough for a computer to be cheap. It's got to be fast, or it's no good to anyone.
Re:sure, we'll solder to plastic circuitry. (Score:4)
-Daniel
Re:Uh, oh. We've heard this before... (Score:1)
My intention on the original post was not to speak against scientific research (I am a scientist at Stanford University). My intention was to warn against the folly of believing that just because they have a company with cool press releases that they are going to change the world. As a scientific undertaking I'm all for it, as a business opportunity, I'm skeptical.
(Jeez, you guys are harsh)
-Moondog
Uh, oh. We've heard this before... (Score:3)
-Moondog
You have got to be kidding (Score:1)
Our microprocessor isn't some tiny silicon die -- it's the size of a sheet of paper, maybe two
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Where to start? The circuit size will drive up power usage and heat generation. The only way to offset this will be to slow the processor, and to add a huge battery. The result will be one of the biggest and heaviest "laptop" systems on the market that's slower than a P-100 and able to heat an average 3-bedroom house all by itself.
What about cost of development? (Score:1)
Although this technology has the possibility to make manufacturing chips much cheaper, Cringly doesn't mention anything about designing them.
How much of the current price of a chip goes into R&D? Half or more?
Now, granted, producing more chips does allow the cost of R&D to be distributed to more costomers, but the idead of a $15 computer seems absurd. You can only distribute the cost to so many poeple. (Most of the first world already supports it, and who else can afford it?)
I hope this technology works, but it's more likely to be an evolution than a revolution.
Karma whoring (Score:1)
The masses will finally start taking free software seriously.
Re:Why do you all do it? (Score:1)
I'm aware of the argument that the purpose of writing is communcation, and if the message is understood then the rest is unimportant. It seems to me that attitude is akin to a programmer hacking something together until it compiles and appears to work, and considering it a job well done.
Re:a possible problem with the concept (Score:1)
Why we make chips the way we do... (Score:1)
Try aligning your printing presses to that kind of close tolerances....
Try doing multi-layers with this thing...
Sure, it might work, but I doubt it.
Re:How this could be bad (Score:1)
Re:Trace length? (Score:1)
Well, if we get real simplistic and ignore the timing of operations, the distance across a page would only limit the CPU to something like 14.9GHz. Then again, you could get fancy with the layout, and if you consider the layering, you can keep some key parts of the CPU within less than 1/4 inch from each other.
Anybody who says these things would replace current technology as speed/power leaders any time soon is smoking crack, but I would certainly pay $15 for a 486DX66 laptop.
Chips are things of the past. (Score:1)
Re:How this could be bad (Score:1)
Re:Why do you all do it? (Score:1)
Too werds: fonetik spelers.
Anybody actually read rolltronics.com? (Score:1)
So before you go dismissing this technology, try checking out what they're really trying to do with it instead of buying the Cringely article.. which seems a bit on the sensationalist journalist side.
Slashdot Headline: 2015 (Score:1)
Hack your AOL Spamputer to run Linux 6.4!
If you thought those AOL CD's were bad, imagine getting pre-configured computers in the mail. If it's cheap enough, it'll happen.
Re:$15 computers and commericial operating systems (Score:1)
treatment for the /. effect (Score:2)
Trace length? (Score:2)
Re:How this could be bad (Score:1)
What happens (Score:1)
Re:You have got to be kidding (Score:1)
Digital Books finally really gonna happen (Score:1)
But seriously, if it can't run half-life, it ain't replacing my note book.
Re:You have got to be kidding (Score:3)
Where to start? Decreasing density leads to better heat dissipation. Changing fabrication materials could mean less heat generation. Size doesn't mean anything so long as no space is wasted; moving outwards in the x axis, instead of adding gates upwards to the y-axis are equivilants. ie: building out instead of up.
Re:What about cost of development? (Score:1)
Sure these guys want to roll out the entire computer, from $15 in plastic, but is there really much more than $15 in raw materials in ur existing puter?
There's the challenge of designing all the components, and performance questions (what is the gate length possible under this process?). I wish them luck, but I'll jump on the bandwagon when its no longer vaporware.
Didn't you guys READ the article (Score:2)
AFA all the 'it won't compete with a X Ghz processor' has it occured to anybody that you print the pages for the supportable stuff (battery/display) and all 100 pages have a notch dead center where a real processor is dropped JUUUST before you laminate on the keyboard?
So then you HAVE your 1 Ghz, $40 laptop.
Re:You don't think english as written, but in soun (Score:1)
I also think it depends somewhat on how your mind works. For example, I read a lot, and I tend to 'see' words, rather than hear them. Perhaps that is why, when I was younger, I used to know what a lot of words meant, and how to spell them, but I would sometimes have, uh, interesting pronunciation of some words.
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Why do you all do it? (Score:3)
Enough is enough I say! Bring back the 'a' in than!
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Re:How this could be bad (Score:1)
Re:Cringley doesn't go far enough (Score:1)
There's always been something that's bothered me about this 'knee of the growth curve' phrase. Aren't you always at the knee of the curve? As time progresses, the slope of the future curve is always exponentially steeper than the slope of the curve behind you. Isn't that why exponential growth on a log plot is a straight line?
Wearable (was Re:Chips are things of the past.) (Score:1)
Printable == Wearable
Obligatory Beowulf Comment (Score:1)
Translation or original Old English is up to you.
Beowulf revisted - Ebook (Score:1)
This I like.
www.notnowpal.com (Score:2)
Bzzzt Wrong.
Intel or AMD BUYS our friendly RollTronics and maintain their positions in the new era --or-- they get involved enough in the technology and prove that it, in fact, does not work (in order to protect their $XXX Trillion dollar fab investments)
Computing hazard (Score:2)
What a concept.
Imagine sending THAT back to tech support for repair: "Reason for repair:" Euhh..... "Curry Related Emergency?"
Bad Technology Metaphor Sighted (Score:2)
While I'm with Cringely on most of what he says in the article, the 15th Century longbow/arquebus (they didn't have muskets then, damn it!) comparison is a poor one. Essentially, firearms underperformed the longbow right up until the middle of the nineteenth century when breech-loading and mass-produced rifles made them faster and more accurate (hand-built muzzleloaders were slow and inconsistent) than the bow.
The reason that firearms replaced the bow some three hundred years before they were its technical equal was economic: an archer required years of training to have the accuracy and muscle development required to be any use at all in combat (archers can be identified from their skeletons, having asymmetric bone thickening in their arm bones) and have to be fit and well on the day as the physical effort required to discharge thirty arrows rapidly is huge.
A muzzle-loading musket, despite having a 2-metre circle of probable hit at fifty metres range and a rate of fire perhaps a tenth that of a longbow, has a *way* lower ammo cost, a training overhead of perhaps a fortnight (and you can teach it in an afternoon if your student is bright and you don't care if he hits anything), and no great strength or stamina required since the kinetic energy that does the damage doesn't come from the soldier's own muscle.
The solution to the technical difficulties is to use them en masse, mix them with pikes or give them bayonets for close work and fight on the defensive if at all you can.
Basically, the longbow was betamax to the musket's VHS...
Most important use (Score:2)
Re:Uh, oh. We've heard this before... (Score:2)
Re:Cringley doesn't go far enough (Score:2)
"Say you were an English yeoman in the 15th century.
The problem with this analogy is that guns didn't exceed bows until about 300 hundred years later (and the yeoman, and his children, and children's children, et. cyk. hopefully stuck with archery.)
I'm hoping to see nifty plastic computers sooner than that. But until then, I think I'll hang onto my yew-wood bow, er, semiconductor computer.
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D. Fischer
Tech Limits on plastic (Score:2)
Re:Chips are things of the past. (Score:2)
Why the f$ck would anyone think computers are going this way? Smaller is a trend. Wearable is a trend. Remote processing is a trend. All of which can be pushed to utterly ridiculous limits within the next decade! This Rolltronics seems more like a scam, especially with lines like "This is a multi-billion dollar opportunity."
My wristwatch has more processing power than the first computers. /. Ran an article on a wristwatch that runs Linux. The ultimate CyberGeek I know had LCD glasses (prototype), Nintendo gloves, and a book sized unit that made Xbernaut look archaic. Not to mention full time wireless hookup to the net. While Cringely discounts 'incremental' changes, in ten years that's going to be reduced down to contacts, a wrist wrap (nerve sensors), and something the size of a pager. Hopefully running on an ethanol fuel cell.
For my $.03 CDN, the reversible switch is probably a better bet, as it allows 3D 'chips', without the heat problems. Quantum is still a ways off. And Rolltronics is going nowhere.
How this could be bad (Score:3)
Cringley says that the battery will be intergrated into the stamping procedure. This could be _really_ bad in my opinion becuase once the battery runs out so would the "computer".
Lets say you pay for this month's Wired and comes via a wafer-computer. You read it and enjoy the interactive articles and eyecandy. Life seems that much cooler.
Next month you want to re-read that artice. Too bad the battery is dead. Now you gotta pay for last months issue again.
This seem like too much control over content I paid for. We are already bitching about DVD region encoding. At least DVD's don't expire.
Leknor
Re:Doing the math (Score:2)
Commercial-grade printing starts at about 1200 dpi and goes up to around 2400 dpi fairly inexpensively. Assuming similar characterstics of absorption and viscosity with the materials being contemplated here, the actual print density would be more like:
1.2672x10^8
Or roughly 127 million dots per page.
Re:It's not so easy as it might seem... (Score:2)
Obviously, any technology with lower performance and lower price will start in the lower-end segment (wow!). In which segment you make money, which allows for R&D on reducing print size, which allows you to move up the chain, which makes more money, which allows more R&D, which allows you to move up the chain...
If this is fundamentally cheaper than silicon chips, then it'll probably first eat the markets in which chips in the Z80/6520 are still being sold (2-12 MHz, 5k-6k transistors), then the 8088/8086 processors (5-12 MHz, 30k transistors), then the 68000-class (68k transistors).