IBM's silicon-germanium, 210GHz, 1mA transistors

[Steve_Jr]

By the way, the Tandy for $8,499.00 DOES NOT include the monitor and the mouse. Read the fine print. That's even more wild, huh?

[DiscoLando]

100Ghz in two years? Are they referring to the consumer market or only high-end workstations and network hardware?

I'll believe it when I see it.

[OC Guy]

How much for a 100Ghz computer?

[MadMatt]

These chips will be for very high-end optical switches. Chip speeds in that market top out at 40GHZ today. A single Nortel Optera switch can handle 160Gbps - equivalent to more than 100,000 T1 lines...

[DiscoLando]

So is this technology not really useful in consumer level chips, or will there be a carry-over (albiet in limited scope) into Intel, AMD, and Motorola's technologies?

[Sea Walnut]

All good questions here...
I'm wondering exactly how HOT these things run... do you need a constant source of liquid nitrogen here!? And I remember spending 5000+ dollars on an 8088 back in the day... ohh boy...

[prexaspes]

Can't be a consumer item; 80% increase? I'd say from a 1.4ghz T-Bird to a 210ghz Germanium Inside would be slightly more than 80%.

[Dood]

Hmm Sounds really nice , new technology but if we have sometimes cooling problemms with dual 1.2 t-birds , how is the cooler for all that gonna look like and how much power would it need?
and why whould you even need soo much ???

[Some1]

Hmm Sounds really nice , new technology but if we have sometimes cooling problemms with dual 1.2 t-birds , how is the cooler for all that gonna look like and how much power would it need?
and why whould you even need soo much ???

[Hellmund]

Well do you think 10 years ago people thought there would be any use for 1ghz processors? I think not, hell most people though we'd never get past 100mhz. It does have uses today anyway, a single 210ghz processor could almost monitor SETI for instance by itself instead of having to have a big colaberated group of home computers. It'd also have uses in speach recognition software and just think how realistic a computers games could end up looking. It'd also be extremely useful for running simulations.

[brainflame]

Uh, guys? Maybe you didn't read carefully. IBM did not say processors. They said transistors. There is a considerable difference. I know, when I first saw the headline I was saying to myself, "****! I knew I should have held off on that 1.4 Athlon." But they weren't talking about that. Just the transistors in the electronic devices. Reread MadMatts comment.

I also wonder if there will be a carryover. If the transistors on the motherboards and the processors are increased in a 80% clock maybe we can hope for 3.2 GHz processors in the next two years.

That would not be in keeping with Moore's law though would it.

[brainflame]

Uh, guys? Maybe you didn't read carefully. IBM did not say processors. They said transistors. There is a considerable difference. I know, when I first saw the headline I was saying to myself, "****! I knew I should have held off on that 1.4 Athlon." But they weren't talking about that. Just the transistors in the electronic devices. Reread MadMatts comment.

I also wonder if there will be a carryover. If the transistors on the motherboards and the processors are increased in a 80% clock maybe we can hope for 3.2 GHz processors in the next two years.

That would not be in keeping with Moore's law though would it.

[MadMatt]

Brainflame has a good point. The devices, while incredible perforers, are *relatively* simple. All they do is route packets, so they are designed and construced for that exact purpose. PC processors are much more complex. Still, this is quite an amazing development and bodes well for the industry as a whole. Personally, I'm REALLY looking forward to the tech that's coming down the pipe...

[DrakerKing]

I think that they are referring to a single transister. A typical processer has millions of these built into them on a single chip.
I calculated the cost of my currnt machine based on prices of chips and memeory and hardware based on prices in 1980 then and the total came to $27,987,300 but i only paid $3000