“IBM and Georgia Tech have coaxed a chip to run at 500GHz, a record for a silicon-based device, by dropping the temperature to minus 451 degrees Fahrenheit,” Michael Kanellos reports for CNET News. “The experiment is part of a project to explore the ultimate speed limits of silicon-germanium (SiGe) chips. SiGe chips are similar to standard silicon chips, but they also contain germanium for better performance and lower power consumption.”
“At room temperature, the IBM-Georgia Tech chip operates at 350GHz, or 350 billion cycles per second. That’s far faster than standard PC processors today, which range from 3.8GHz to 1.8GHz. But SiGe chips can gain additional performance in colder temperatures,” Kanellos reports. “To that end, IBM and Georgia Tech scientists turned down the temperature and cryogenically froze the chip at minus 451 F… SiGe chips, the scientists theorized, could eventually hit 1 terahertz, or 1 trillion cycles a second… Ultimately, high-performance SiGe chips could be used in defense systems, space exploration vehicles and remote sensing. Conceivably, you could also build a computer for Ted Williams and other cryogenically frozen celebrities.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Michael” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Uh, forget the deep freeze, they had us at “350GHz at room temperature.”
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Man, that link is one butt ugly web site.
Oh oh. . . the Matrix, here we come. . .
And do you know why IBM is experimenting with this?
Because they realized long ago that they can’t get processors to go any faster without a great deal of heat. So the experiment is to see what materials and tempertures they can use to reasonable aquire more performance.
Sure Intel has produced a Core Duo that can go into laptops (err notebooks) but it’s really just a temporary measure, the performance of the Core Duo’s is not exceeding the present G5 processors by any great leaps.
So IBM is looking at the future, trying to find a solution for the heat/performance problem.
Now only if a container could be built that would keep those supercooled chips pernamently cool. But nobody has found a way to contain heat transfer yet.
We might be seeing the Cell processor in the new Mac Pro’s. No heat problems there, lots of room for cooling.
if think we all know about ibm promises and lab results, very different in the real world, – does this mean g5 powerbooks? lol
What about Intel? Damned early conversion…
Will it run a Universal Binary?!?!
You see the problem with things comes with the electrons having too much free movement in a conductor, so it bounces around instead of going straight and therefore creates resistance which makes heat.
If you can lower the resistance and control the electrons to stay a more straight course through a material, then you lower the heat and increase performance.
The ideal processor would be one made of room temperture super-conducting material, no resistance means no heat, which means one can crank up the performance greatly.
Now I know IBM has failed miserably with the G5 processor roadmap, and it’s a shame really. The best brains in the buisness work at IBM.
But the RISC architecture just has too many things going on the processor that made it reach it’s thermal limit faster than x86 based procesors did.
Intel has reached it’s thermal limit too, that’s why dual cores were invented. But Intel is now struggling with the heat problem in their Core Duos.
Ever look at all the heat related complaints over at the Apple forums for the new Mactels?
So right now a new technological solution is needed, duo cores are too hot for laptops and will soon be obsolete. We might have to forgo having a laptop in exchange for having a powerful desktop at home and a PDA instead.
Thank you, Mr. Science!
(seriously)
WOW! MS can REALLY let Windows get bloated now!
(System Requirements: Silicon Germanium X86, 350 ghz, 50gb RAM, 2 terabyte hdd.)
Crap! I’d better switch back!!!
^^ This is the FUNNIEST joke ever posted on MDN ^^
Hey.. in an unrelated news tip…
iPhoto 6.0.4 has been released on Software update
Static:
Not your best series of posts, considering this is an experiment designed to test extremes (of temps & materials). Hardly comparable to present products, no matter who is making them. And in your dressing down of the G5 b/c of it’s high temps, you ignore the fact that Yonah is as hot a CPU as the lowpower G5 was/is (proved by MacBooks & BookPros cooking bacon while in use). Besides, AMD’s stuff is world renown for being both low power/high performance, as well as cooler than the competition pretty much across the board. Do you know who they’ve licensed almost all of their materials technology from?
Did you say IBM?
I knew that you could.
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All I’m saying is that all this IBM/G5 bashing is yesterday’s RDF pal. We now know from all the concerned company’s roadmaps, products currently (or soon to be) offered, as well as independent reports from people who knew the skinny of what they were trying to do for Apple, that had Apple stayed with PPC, both Freescale and IBM would have matched anything we’re seeing at the moment from Intel, and PA Semi’s upcoming CPU almost certainly would’ve matched Woodcrest/Conroe with Apple’s continued involvement. The switch just wasn’t done for performance, whether that’s measured by cycles or Celcius – it was done to sell you video from iTMS. Intel hardware DRM wasn’t available without also buying Intel CPUs and chipsets – period. All the rest is just FUD.
They arent going to have to switch.
Universal Binary
When the history is written about Apple, the Intel switch will be put on the negative side. Mainly because that´s when Apple finally went Windows.
Oh god, not the DRM canard again. There is no reason to believe that Apple will use the Intel chip for any DRM-related purpose. No such product could be launched until at least 2013 or so anyway as there is still a need to support PowerPC users.
IBM still has no roadmap for an appropriate processor for Apple notebooks. Don’t give me Cell: its performance for general-purpose applications is still questionable and it’s an unproven design. Freescale’s roadmap is only a temporary measure — yes, they can improve the speed of the G4, but they don’t have the kind of serious development effort that’s required for the future.
Bottom line, after falling seriously behind their competitors in real processor speeds, Apple needed to secure their future. The most reliable way to do that was to switch to what their competitors were using.
1. How long can the room-temp chip run at 350ghz before it melts? Is it a good sports car that can cruise 140mph all day, or is it a top-fuel dragster that does 300mph but only for a quarter mile?
2. When does IBM plan to have these to market, if ever? What good is a 350ghz chip if, by the time you ship it, the competition is at 700ghz?
2. Can IBM produce these chips in volume? (A handful of lab-built chips doesn’t count) The worlds fastest chips mean nothing if you can’t get them.
Farenheit -451 ?
A little Bradburyian for me.
So let’s keep all applications at Universal Binary, that way Apple can switch between IBM and Intel chips every couple of years.
: )
Duh understatement of the year:
“…the IBM-Georgia Tech chip operates at 350GHz, or 350 billion cycles per second. That’s far faster than standard PC processors today“
Wannabe is right, Apple made a good decision that will serve
them for the next 8 – 10 years. This technology is still a way
off. It should be some time before it hits the desktop. Besides,
IBM will not be able to keep a stranglehold on the technology,
though they may try.
SSHHHH!!!!! dont tell intel or AMD…
wait what does this cpu process? nothing you say? next.
Intel hardware DRM wasn’t available without also buying Intel CPUs and chipsets – period. All the rest is just FUD.
Both IBM and AMD are Trusted Computing members
https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/about/members/
But neither are Digital Content Protection (HDCP) licensees, so it seems your right. Apple had to tag along or we couldn’t watch or burn to our BlueRay DVD’s.
http://www.digital-cp.com/list/
(Intel has create both TC and HDCP)
Man, I can only imagine how fast they’d have gotten it to run, if they’d only have conducted the experiments in Michigan!
The article refers to a silicon chip that will run at 350 / 500GHz.
Silicon chips come in many levels of complexity, from those containing just one or two transistors, to a CPU with immense numbers of transistors.
I would assume that this particular experiment was with a component that was very much at the simpler end of the spectrum and that there are many obstacles to be overcome before a complex CPU can be expected to run at anything remotely approaching that sort of speed.
First, MDN makes the key point: From the users’ perspective the cryo performance is merely interesting, but the room temperature performance is jaw droppingly exciting.
But now look at the high frequency. This means the wave length of a clock signal is sub millimeter. An asynchronous design is required because the clock will be severely skewed across the chip. But IBM has a long standing research program in asynchronous chip design. And new processes will need to be invented and tuned to scale up the manufacture to large size chips of this type. So the right market to exploit in the near term years is communications. Then the chip technology can be evolved along the learning curve to compete in other markets and perhaps even the computer CPU and graphics chip market.
We are talking many years out for this technology. Intel was the right choice for now, especially since it provides bridges (Boot Camp and Parallels) for Windows hostages to escape their captor.