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From: Jerry Avins on 24 Feb 2010 14:02
Eric Jacobsen wrote:
> On 2/24/2010 9:00 AM, Jerry Avins wrote:
>> Eric Jacobsen wrote:
>>> On 2/24/2010 7:31 AM, Jerry Avins wrote:
>>>> http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2010/02/23_nsf_award.shtml
>>>>
>>>> Jerry
>>>
>>> Sounds like a jobs bill to me, especially if they're focusing on the
>>> transistors. I think they're a couple decades behind the curve to
>>> expect the academic community to make a breakthrough around switching
>>> logic design...just IMHO.
>>
>> There are other ways to save. Last I heard, more power is expended on
>> idle computers in the US than is used in all of Belgium. Quick recovery
>> from stand-by and the ability to respond to external wake-up signals
>> would save a lot of energy.
>>
>> Jerry
>
> I agree completely, but that article says:
>
> "To reduce the energy requirement of electronics, researchers will focus
> on the basic logic switch, the decision-maker in computer chips. The
> logic switch function is primarily performed by transistors, which
> demand about 1 volt to function well. There are more than 1 billion
> transistors in multi-core microprocessor systems.
>
> "The transistors in the microprocessor are what draw the most power in a
> computer," said Yablonovitch. "When you feel the heat from under a
> laptop, blame it on the transistors.""
>
> So they're focused on transistor switch technology, to which I'm sure
> they have nearly zero visibility into the current state of the art
> (because it's almost certainly proprietary competitive information), and
> which is also already the subject of a lot more than $27M in research by
> the companies that DO make the stuff. It's not like reducing power
> consumption is a new problem.
>
> So something seems very amiss with this particular grant in my view.

I suspect it's a cover for something else.

Jerry
--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������
From: Tim Wescott on 24 Feb 2010 14:07
Eric Jacobsen wrote:
> On 2/24/2010 9:00 AM, Jerry Avins wrote:
>> Eric Jacobsen wrote:
>>> On 2/24/2010 7:31 AM, Jerry Avins wrote:
>>>> http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2010/02/23_nsf_award.shtml
>>>>
>>>> Jerry
>>>
>>> Sounds like a jobs bill to me, especially if they're focusing on the
>>> transistors. I think they're a couple decades behind the curve to
>>> expect the academic community to make a breakthrough around switching
>>> logic design...just IMHO.
>>
>> There are other ways to save. Last I heard, more power is expended on
>> idle computers in the US than is used in all of Belgium. Quick recovery
>> from stand-by and the ability to respond to external wake-up signals
>> would save a lot of energy.
>>
>> Jerry
>
> I agree completely, but that article says:
>
> "To reduce the energy requirement of electronics, researchers will focus
> on the basic logic switch, the decision-maker in computer chips. The
> logic switch function is primarily performed by transistors, which
> demand about 1 volt to function well. There are more than 1 billion
> transistors in multi-core microprocessor systems.
>
> "The transistors in the microprocessor are what draw the most power in a
> computer," said Yablonovitch. "When you feel the heat from under a
> laptop, blame it on the transistors.""
>
> So they're focused on transistor switch technology, to which I'm sure
> they have nearly zero visibility into the current state of the art
> (because it's almost certainly proprietary competitive information), and
> which is also already the subject of a lot more than $27M in research by
> the companies that DO make the stuff. It's not like reducing power
> consumption is a new problem.
>
> So something seems very amiss with this particular grant in my view.

It is quite in line with current thinking on how to get speeds up and
power down, actually. The explanation of the science is vague, but that
seems to have more to do with the competence of the technical writer
than anything else, IMHO.

If they do nothing but rehash stuff that Intel et all are keeping under
the cover of proprietary information and publish it in public journals,
they'll be doing the world a service.

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com
From: Eric Jacobsen on 24 Feb 2010 14:30
On 2/24/2010 12:07 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
> Eric Jacobsen wrote:
>> On 2/24/2010 9:00 AM, Jerry Avins wrote:
>>> Eric Jacobsen wrote:
>>>> On 2/24/2010 7:31 AM, Jerry Avins wrote:
>>>>> http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2010/02/23_nsf_award.shtml
>>>>>
>>>>> Jerry
>>>>
>>>> Sounds like a jobs bill to me, especially if they're focusing on the
>>>> transistors. I think they're a couple decades behind the curve to
>>>> expect the academic community to make a breakthrough around switching
>>>> logic design...just IMHO.
>>>
>>> There are other ways to save. Last I heard, more power is expended on
>>> idle computers in the US than is used in all of Belgium. Quick recovery
>>> from stand-by and the ability to respond to external wake-up signals
>>> would save a lot of energy.
>>>
>>> Jerry
>>
>> I agree completely, but that article says:
>>
>> "To reduce the energy requirement of electronics, researchers will
>> focus on the basic logic switch, the decision-maker in computer chips.
>> The logic switch function is primarily performed by transistors, which
>> demand about 1 volt to function well. There are more than 1 billion
>> transistors in multi-core microprocessor systems.
>>
>> "The transistors in the microprocessor are what draw the most power in
>> a computer," said Yablonovitch. "When you feel the heat from under a
>> laptop, blame it on the transistors.""
>>
>> So they're focused on transistor switch technology, to which I'm sure
>> they have nearly zero visibility into the current state of the art
>> (because it's almost certainly proprietary competitive information),
>> and which is also already the subject of a lot more than $27M in
>> research by the companies that DO make the stuff. It's not like
>> reducing power consumption is a new problem.
>>
>> So something seems very amiss with this particular grant in my view.
>
> It is quite in line with current thinking on how to get speeds up and
> power down, actually. The explanation of the science is vague, but that
> seems to have more to do with the competence of the technical writer
> than anything else, IMHO.
>
> If they do nothing but rehash stuff that Intel et all are keeping under
> the cover of proprietary information and publish it in public journals,
> they'll be doing the world a service.
>

I doubt they'll be able to seriously approach anything remotely close to
the technology that Intel, et al, use with a $27M program spread across
multiple institutions. The equipment needed to do anything substantial
at those geometries is way beyond the entire cost of the program.

They might publish something, but I'm skeptical that it'll be relevant.

--
Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms
Abineau Communications
http://www.abineau.com
From: glen herrmannsfeldt on 25 Feb 2010 02:40
Tim Wescott <tim(a)seemywebsite.now> wrote:
(snip, I wrote)

>> As I understand it, one reason for that ability was so that
>> leased machines could be charged based on the CPU time used.
>> It is also very convenient for emulation (virtual machine or
>> software) as there is no need to waste host time executing
>> an idle loop.

>> Most processors now do not have this ability. Even so, it
>> should be possible to power down, for example, the floating
>> point unit when no floating point is being done.

> Look again. Many processors intended for use in embedded systems _do_
> have this ability, and some give you quite a bit of flexibility of how
> much of the chip you can shut down when it goes idle.

I do remember the HALT instruction on the 6809.

> But I don't know if the Intel chips do this.

If they do, it doesn't seem to be used. Windows has an idle
process, and I believe that IA32 unix/linux do also.

I don't remember if the 8080 does.

-- glen
From: Michael Plante on 25 Feb 2010 11:50
Glen wrote:
>Tim Wescott <tim(a)seemywebsite.now> wrote:
>(snip, I wrote)
>
>>> As I understand it, one reason for that ability was so that
>>> leased machines could be charged based on the CPU time used.
>>> It is also very convenient for emulation (virtual machine or
>>> software) as there is no need to waste host time executing
>>> an idle loop.
>
>>> Most processors now do not have this ability. Even so, it
>>> should be possible to power down, for example, the floating
>>> point unit when no floating point is being done.
>
>> Look again. Many processors intended for use in embedded systems _do_
>> have this ability, and some give you quite a bit of flexibility of how
>> much of the chip you can shut down when it goes idle.
>
>I do remember the HALT instruction on the 6809.
>
>> But I don't know if the Intel chips do this.
>
>If they do, it doesn't seem to be used. Windows has an idle
>process, and I believe that IA32 unix/linux do also.
>
>I don't remember if the 8080 does.

No idea about the 8080, but the 8086+ has the HLT instruction. As far as
more recent manuals go, the P4 manual states that any enabled interrupts
will wake it. Also, re the idle process, that may just be a placeholder to
make the times add up; I wouldn't assume anything there. Windows does some
weird stuff with accounting (e.g., the memory in task manager doesn't
necessarily add up the way one would expect).

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Prev: Be ready to be killed, or take action to stop the global suicide.Police,stop John Ellis. Courts, sentence him to death. Otherwise J.Ellis,R.Heuer,I.Tkachov, B.Cox and other potential killers of Earth will murderall ofyou.
Next: Tomorrow they are ready to start the LHC collider. The Earth can be exploded in a 1000 seconds!