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Small report about Intel/Micron 3D NAND plans. I think this is something we should have a closer look at!
I believe the natural continuation of Moore's Law will be in multiple transistor layers, don't you guys think so too? I am not talking about die stacking but about multiple layers of transistors on a single die. Samsung already built a multi layer memory called 3D Nand. I am certainly aware that a logic design is a completely different animal, but I guess once the tools have been developed, such a thing would be possible. Once it works, Moore's Law could continue in the third dimension (not talking about Finfets here, but they are kind of a start).
Power issues would be certainly a problem but this could be solved with improved transistor design (gate all around and all that stuff). The first steps will certainly be tough and analog design will be a horror on that (and yet unknown analog designs could be possible once handable). I think this is going to happen not so far in the future. I really doubt we'll see 3nm designs at all, but I may be wrong.
In any case, Samsung may have a lead here. Micron develops 3D Nand as well by the way. I told you about how important that joint venture could prove to be, didn't I ....
Intel could have bought Micron two years ago as a bargain. That would have proven to be an asset of much greater value than Mc Afee, TV Boxes, Smart Bracelets and what else "WTF are they thinking" stuff they were wasting our money on.
Well, even though I am not convinced that Core M is the right design for Intel to make up for lost ground, not all issues may stay unsolved. The thermal design seems crucial and I guess the OEMs have to learn how to deal with such potent hardware in tablets (same goes for the high end ARM designs nowadays, by the way).
The Nexus 9 also seems to make use of a lot of optimization regarding thermal distribution. Metal backplates with heat sinks connected may help there (what Apple does for quite a while already and may help them winning benchmarks).
One shouldn't also dismiss the performance a Core M delivers at 2 GHz and beyond, especially with complex/real application code. Nvidia's Denver seems to be quite bad at this. People report about lags and real life performance not holding up to the expectations given by benchmarks. This is crucial in the end. Maybe it's an optimization issue but it also seems to be supported by strongly varying benchmark results from different benchmarks.
Regarding Chrome, this seems a software/driver issue. I believe Intel is already working on it together with Glogle to fix it. Maybe they'll introduce some GPU supported rendering of the video format Google uses.
The problem with those soft machines is to come along with the timings, i.e. high clocks. This indirection comes at a cost, which is long pathes. The concept is fairly old - Transmeta Crusoe was similar and others were trying that stuff more than a decade ago. In addition, high end Haswell's deliver a similar IPC with much higher clocks/maximum performance. That stuff seems rather academic to me (though it's interesting).
Anybody heard of the Chipworx rumours about Core M? Intel's process characteristics prove to be correct, i.e. their density claims should hold true. The process seems to use 13 layers if I recall correctly. That's not going to make it cheaper (though others will have to do the same I guess).
ARM misses guidance. Quite a high multiple for a company which misses its (admittedly high) guidance. Let's see the market reaction of today.
Tablets have already slowed down and also smartphones will face a slower replacement rate some time in the future. The smartphone hardware evolution just doesn't justify a replacement every year or so anymore. And then there's stiff price competition from Intel coming - a lot of headwind that is.