I will write one more post for now with my thoughts on where the PC is goin g and also processors and software.
AMD has recently proven that it is possible to place 64 cores on a chip and this is going to revolutionize the software industry. At least it has the potential to do so.
Multi-threaded software will become the norm instead of the exception. This will automatically create even more demand for even more cores. Cause if a ll software is written for 64 cores for example, one would need even more c ores to be able to multi-task between different programs.
However producing these processors require machines from ASML a dutch compa ny and the only company in the world that makes these machines. Recently it seems TRUMP administration give "advise" to dutch goverment to NOT sell on e of these 500 million dollar costing machines to CHINA for fears of chips being used for the MILITARY.
CHINA is very important for the ENTIRE world and especially USA. Apple made billions selling iPhones produced in CHINA. Microsoft makes billions by se lling software to PC's of which components are produced in CHINA.
Financial companies, oil companies, aviation/aircraft designers, hollywood film studies, internet/the web, all of these companies/services could very well dependent on hardware manufactured in CHINA.
The list goes on and on and on.
Not delivering chip manufacturing machines to CHINA could hurt world wide e conomy and especially USA/Silicon Valley and it's software industry.
So far CHINA is a pretty good trade partner and I cannot recall any WARS wi th CHINA and thus these concerns for military abuse are a bit far fetched, there is no evidence for this as far as I know off. Spies could be sent to CHINA to spy on if there is any thruth to this and if there is any reason f or concerns. CHINA also needs military to defend itself against any aggress ion.
Anyway, this has also placed the dutch goverment in an impossible position between two almost super powers or at least very big economies and this is somewhat unreasonable and akward thing to do for TRUMP administration. CHIN A could also try and force DUTCH not to deliver machines to USA or else fac e trade-bans and such.
My advise to TRUMP administration is to revoke this "advise" to dutch gover ment because if a wrong decision is made it might affect world wide economy and it may/might have unforseen consequences and might spiral into a situa tion that nobody likes.
The people in dutch goverment are not the most well-informed and are not th e most tech savy people. Yet now they must make a decision that may have fa r reaching consequences. They are good managers though I think and I hope a nd I do think they will let themselfes get informed well and I hope they wi ll make a good decision.
However it would be better if USA/Trump administration would retract their concerns for the good of the economy. USA does have nuclear bombs, stealth bombers and B2 bombers and nasty sub marines and could probably take on CHI NA if really necessary so this military concern seems somewhat unrealistic or somewhat unnecessary.
Towards the future it is also uncertain what will happen. If trump is re-el ected will there be more "advises" to the dutch goverment about deliverance /approval of ASML chip manufacturing machines ?
This could seriously throw a wrench in the advancement of computer chips an d the multi-core "revolution" that is about to begin. It could also raise c hip prices in the future. It's hard for me to tell and unknown which CHINA companies would be affected by these "bans" and which "chip design" compani es would be hit by this. It may affect NVIDIA, AMD and others using CHINA m anufacturing companies.
USA also borrowed lots of money from CHINA. Apple does not pay much if any taxes to US treasury. As well as some other companies. Trump could "earn" t he US treasury much more "CASH/MONEY" by demanding these TECH companies pay TAXES. This may be a better approach then fighting china over "pennies" ba sically.
Enough about these politics for now.
Another topic is Microsoft and it's product Microsoft Windows. It is most l ikely that AMD will push on with Threadripper designs and scale up the core s even more as Moore's Law continues.
My assumption is that is transisters are halved in size, 4 times the capaci ty becomes available on the chip in 2 dimensions. For now 5 nanometer seems next, however 3 nanometer, 1.5 nanometer and even 1 or 0.5 nanometer seems doable.
This means that threadripper design can evolve/scale up to
4x64 = 256 cores from 7 nm to 3.5 and another scale up to 4x256 cores = 1000 from 3.5 to roughly 1.75 nanometer s and another scale up from 1.75 to 0.97 nanometers 1000x4 = 4000 cores.Perhaps my halving of the size in both dimensions is a bit optimistic and n ot realistic I don't know about that, but perhaps.
At the very least it should go from:
7 nanometers now, 64 to: 3.5 nanometers, 128 1.75 nanometers, 256 0.97 nanometers, 512 And maybe even 0.5 nanomenters 1024.5 x 1.5 = 7 years.
So my prediction at least follow Moore's law is that in 7 years there will be at least a 1000 core processor.
And if it's done in both sizes it might well be 8000 core processor.
So roughly speaking in 10 years time it will go from 64 to 10.000 core proc essor in best case scenerio ! ;)
Whatever the case may be it seems clear that Microsoft would be wise to ade pt to this new reality and make Windows suited for many-core processor desi gns.
Microsoft currently has Windows Server, perhaps this is a better choice, I don't know.
Windows 10 seems limited to 64 cores currently and may look obsolete very s oon, don't know about that, but it's a bit of a concern.
Failure of Microsoft to adept Windows to this quickly changing reality may lead to Windows being overtaken by the inferior Linux Operating System whic h has much inferior GUI.
I would hate to see this happens since the Linux GUI does not provide all t he nice information that Windows GUI provides. So my hope is that Microsoft took note of Threadripper 3 3900x and realizes this is a game changer.
These kinds of processors have also been available for servers, the EPYC li ne of processors from AMD.
So in short for now:
My advise to Microsoft is:
Design an operating system for 1000 core and 10.000 core processors. This i s coming sooner than many people will think ! ;) :)
Nothing is stopping AMD from evolving/extending the Open Source Linux opera ting system, and thus for AMD there is no real barrier to continue scaling up their processors by introducing more and more cores.
Bye for now, Skybuck.