# Tera Era?



## Mattu

So how many more years do you thank it will be before the so called "Tera Era" (Processor speed Thz). We alredy breched Terabyte HDD now how long do you'll thank it will be before teraherts processors?

http://emusician.com/mag/emusic_tera_era/index.html


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## SAAER45

I would surmise that it will take a while to achieve such speed in a processor, and even longer to make it commercial. We are living in the fastest growth of technology since man's creation and even so, processor speeds are only creeping up. There is a big difference between GHz and THz


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## jp198780

i'd say within the next 5 years, isnt the XPS have something with Terabytes? or whatever?


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## Mattu

jp198780 said:
			
		

> i'd say within the next 5 years, isnt the XPS have something with Terabytes? or whatever?



Yeah that's how big their hard drives are. 1000GB=1TB


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## jp198780

damnn, really? 1000GB? holy crap lol, what is somebody going 2 do with 1000GB?


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## cell4me

You can fill them up fast especially if you save dvd's or something on your HD...a dvd is 4.7gb by it's self.


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## jp198780

oo, didnt know that, then yeah, it will add up fast.


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## Dr Studly

well think about it... in windows 95 era processor speed wus 100MHz... 5 years later 1GHz... 5 years later 3.8GHz...
but now the new Intel thing is 1.8-2.66GHz
now people are realizing clock speed isn't all as important... unlike how harddrive space is...


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## OvenMaster

My own two cents on this is that I personally don't think it'll happen. 
It took a few years to get to 1GHz. Then a much shorter time to 2GHz, then 3GHz... and then what? Where's 4GHz? Instead we're getting mulitple cores, and 64-bit wordlengths instead of 32-bit. 

To get processors measured in THz, you'd have to go up to 10GHz, then 50GHz, then 100, 200, 500, etc. all the way to 1000GHz: 1THz. I've read that even with 3 or even 4GHz, Intel and AMD were already having to deal with electrons not being able to move fast enough from one place on the die to another, because they were limited by the speed of light.   So I seriously doubt we'll see processors measured in Terahertz. 

Tom


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## Trizoy

OvenMaster said:
			
		

> My own two cents on this is that I personally don't think it'll happen.
> It took a few years to get to 1GHz. Then a much shorter time to 2GHz, then 3GHz... and then what? Where's 4GHz? Instead we're getting mulitple cores, and 64-bit wordlengths instead of 32-bit.
> 
> To get processors measured in THz, you'd have to go up to 10GHz, then 50GHz, then 100, 200, 500, etc. all the way to 1000GHz: 1THz. I've read that even with 3 or even 4GHz, Intel and AMD were already having to deal with electrons not being able to move fast enough from one place on the die to another, because they were limited by the speed of light.   So I seriously doubt we'll see processors measured in Terahertz.
> 
> Tom



Or WHEN it happens the processor wont be constrained by the makeup of it chip... silicon copper etc. Another medium will need to be introduced for these type of speeds to be reached. That could happen tomorrow or in 10 years. I would say Thz in less than 10yrs, but more than 5 for sure.


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## Mattu

Look at this processor speed prediction form 1991. They didn't thank processor speed would reach 1GHz until 2010!

http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Jul/bch20030709020753.htm


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## Filip

OvenMaster said:
			
		

> So I seriously doubt we'll see processors measured in Terahertz.
> 
> Tom



Of course will see, we can even see now, my CPU runs at 0.0024 THz.


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## H-Bomb

I remember reading somewhere that at the current rate processor speeds double every 18 months. If we imagine for a second that 4ghz is a standard for high-end machines (i'm rounding up) that would mean that it would take about 12 years for processor speeds to reach 1Thz. This is all theoretical of course.


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## OvenMaster

Well, I could be wrong. If they finally figure out a cheap way to get superconductors to work at room temps, then who knows?
Tom


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## jp198780

"guess what (4:37pm EST Wed Jul 09 2003)
by 2008 we will easily hit 10ghz

- by an insider"

"2003 4Q Prescott 3.2 & 3.4Ghz
2004 4Q Tejas 5.8Ghz
2005 4Q Nehalem 9.6Ghz
2006 1-2Q 10GHZ !! - by Culan"

you think their right?


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## LITHIUM

is 1THZ=999.99GHZ?


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## dark_legacy2006

next 5 years im sure..... the biggest now s probly about 10 now. does anyone know how big the biggest single processor is?


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## Dr Studly

dark_legacy2006 said:
			
		

> next 5 years im sure..... the biggest now s probly about 10 now. does anyone know how big the biggest single processor is?


well it is easily possible to make a processor that is 10GHz, but it would have long/lots of pipelines, and prolly wouldn't be very effecient...

really, AMD has really shown us that clock speed means almost nothing... now Intel is adopting that... but currently none of these companies are trying to just find ways to up the frequency...


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## OvenMaster

Watch. They'll actually reach 1 THz and some clown will _still_ want to overclock it. LOLOL
Tom


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## Mattu

LITHIUM said:
			
		

> is 1THZ=999.99GHZ?



Yep. Actually 1000GHz=*1*THz


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## jp198780

what are you going 2 use 1THZ 4? like really, why would someone need all that speed.


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## Bobo

Mattu said:
			
		

> Yep. Actually 1000GHz=*1*THz


Don't processors go by 1024s like RAM and HDDs do?


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## Mattu

jp198780 said:
			
		

> what are you going 2 use 1THZ 4? like really, why would someone need all that speed.


Well back in the day let's say about the late 1980's computers ran anywhere from 8MHz to 16MHz. People back then probably thought the same about this Gigahertz Era that were in today.


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## MadModder

IBM & Georgia Tech clocked a chip to 500 GHz.  
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1979104,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

Why not go for an extra 500?  I say it could happen in the next 5-10 years.


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## Dr Studly

MadModder said:
			
		

> IBM & Georgia Tech clocked a chip to 500 GHz.
> http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1979104,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532
> 
> Why not go for an extra 500?  I say it could happen in the next 5-10 years.


oh it CAN happen in like 1 or 2 years, but why? who cares? but frequency doesn't matter much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i mean we were at 3.8GHz a year ago!!!!!!!!! now we are down to 2.2GHz!!!!
because they aren't TRYING to find everyway to up frequency cus it doesn't matter much


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## Arm_Pit

I dont think it will ever happen. We will make a more effent way to make a CPU before that.


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## SC7

Mattu said:
			
		

> We alredy breched Terabyte HDD now how long do you'll thank it will be before teraherts processors?


Where do you get a single 1TB HDD?  Please link me to one of these, cause I can't find more than one 750GB HDD.  And two doesn't count, because that would require two processors, which really isn't like a one terahertz processor.  As far as this goes, it depends on what you view as "reaching" one terahertz.  I could see some university and IBM reaching one terahertz with some special fabrication process in the next 10, even possibly 5 years.  However, I think it'll be many years until this reaches desktops and average level computing, or even servers.  Perhaps the military and NASA may be the first to see this technology.


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## OvenMaster

jp198780 said:
			
		

> what are you going 2 use 1THZ 4? like really, why would someone need all that speed.


First thing that comes to my mind: medical research.
Another: 3-D design and modeling.
Another: statistical analysis. 
Another: artificial intelligence


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## SC7

Encore4More said:
			
		

> oh it CAN happen in like 1 or 2 years, but why? who cares? but frequency doesn't matter much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> i mean we were at 3.8GHz a year ago!!!!!!!!! now we are down to 2.2GHz!!!!
> because they aren't TRYING to find everyway to up frequency cus it doesn't matter much


Something tells me that THE most efficient 2.2 GHz processor will loose to ANY 1 THz Processor.


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## MadModder

We need 1 THz CPUs to put a HAL 9000 in every home!


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## Ku-sama

think about folding with one terahert


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## Lamilia

I think you have to look back to when floppies were like dvds now. Did you ever think about something that could hold a gb of space back then?


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## H-Bomb

Bobo said:
			
		

> Don't processors go by 1024s like RAM and HDDs do?



Yes. 1Thz = 1024Ghz = 1,048,576Mhz = 1,073,741,824hz

People just say that 1Thz = 1000Ghz because it is easier.


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## lee101

H-Bomb said:
			
		

> People just say that 1Thz = 1000Ghz because it is easier.


and who cares about that extra 24Ghz anyway! 

i personally don't think it will happen any time soon, firstly i can't see the point, but i suppose at one time people couldn't even see thepoint in a computer, but if it does happen, possibly in the next 50 years, or maybe it already exists, the 1Thz processor is the world, but we don't know it 

Lee


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## H-Bomb

It's hard enough to imagine a world with Terahertz speed processors, but just think, one day processors will be measure in petahertz (1024Thz) or even exahertz (1,048,576Thz). Now thats something to think about!


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## OvenMaster

Ku-sama said:
			
		

> think about folding with one terahert


Wouldn't that be somethin'?? WU's would be done in an hour instead of four or five days.
Tom


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## SC7

H-Bomb said:
			
		

> It's hard enough to imagine a world with Terahertz speed processors, but just think, one day processors will be measure in petahertz (1024Thz) or even exahertz (1,048,576Thz). Now thats something to think about!


And software will still lag .  It can be like HDDs, where only 10 years ago, 750MB was a lot.  Like I said, it may be invented soon, but won't reach any type of computer any time in the near future.  First of all, that article said it ran 350 at room temp.  They're having limitations with silicon, while this new technology may present some abilities to continue using silicon, it's not going to be as easy as it seems, and these methods would be too expensive/odd operating conditions for them ever to serve a useful purpose.  The future lies in this technology I saw which actually from IBM, has electronic currents and small metallic materials, reached high speeds at low temp on the PowerPC architecture.


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## Shane

Processors are getting faster and faster,But i soppose there will be a problem with actualy been able to cool them in the future but then again they will probably invent something which could handle the heat.


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## lee101

H-Bomb said:
			
		

> It's hard enough to imagine a world with Terahertz speed processors, but just think, one day processors will be measure in petahertz (1024Thz) or even exahertz (1,048,576Thz). Now thats something to think about!


 why have exahertz, when you could have yottahertz! (1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 hertz) folding workunits would be counted in seconds! and people would think tha would be slow


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## SC7

AMD said:
			
		

> Processors are getting faster and faster,But i soppose there will be a problem with actualy been able to cool them in the future but then again they will probably invent something which could handle the heat.


Yea, they had to run that at 0 kelvin to get the 500 GHz mark, where oxygen is frozen.


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## SAAER45

Something people don't seem to be taking into account with their guesses is that the measure of hertz increases exponentially, so getting from megahertz to gigahertz is a hell of a lot easier than getting from zettahertz to yottahertz


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## Mattu

SC7 said:
			
		

> Where do you get a single 1TB HDD?  Please link me to one of these, cause I can't find more than one 750GB HDD.  And two doesn't count, because that would require two processors, which really isn't like a one terahertz processor.  As far as this goes, it depends on what you view as "reaching" one terahertz.  I could see some university and IBM reaching one terahertz with some special fabrication process in the next 10, even possibly 5 years.  However, I think it'll be many years until this reaches desktops and average level computing, or even servers.  Perhaps the military and NASA may be the first to see this technology.


http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10128
It's external though.


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## SC7

Now that's awesome.


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## Bobo

SC7 said:
			
		

> Now that's awesome.


It says "transparent RAID 0."  How can it have that?  It can't write to 2 different places at the same time, can it?


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## jp198780

Mattu said:
			
		

> http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10128
> It's external though.



what capacity is that?


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## Bobo

jp198780 said:
			
		

> what capacity is that?


 1TB....


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## jp198780

damnn, guess not bad 4 $730 bucks.


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## m0nk3ys1ms

1THz CPU will *NEVER* happen (at least i dont think so)


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## bball4life

monkeysims said:
			
		

> 1THz CPU will *NEVER* happen (at least i dont think so)


It will eventually, but right now cpu companies are more focused on the efficiency of their current speeds as seen by the drop in frequencies by intel.  However in order to create something that can hit and maintain that frequency silicon is pretty much out of the question.  A few months ago I read an article about them using synthetic diamonds and they were hitting 10ghz pretty easily. Now its not going to be as simple as just upping the speeds like cpu manufacturers have been doing, it will take awhile, and take a few major improvements before they will start working for those speeds.  For example on of the bigger steps that intel made was moving to a 65nm process, shortening the wavelength, which will have to keep happening to make it possible.  And about the silicon it just can't take it, thats where the synthetic diamonds have the upper hand, since they deal with heat better.  Anywho, you can't even begin to imagine speeds like that, however it doesn't really mean that things will be running much faster.  It will make a difference but think about the improvements in software that have been happening, everything with computers seems to progress pretty evenly with the others, so the cpu's of the future, which may be running exponentially faster, will be doing exponentially more.  Think about it with a 1thz cpu, you would probably have at least 256 to 512gb of ram, and hdd would be closer to a few exobytes, everything will be completely different when that happens.
As for when it happens that is up to the cpu companies, do they want to start focusing on effiency like amd has been doing, and intel is now doing, or do they want to focus on speed, like intel was previously doing, it could be 10  years, 100 years, or 1000 years, no one can predict that.


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## Mattu

monkeysims said:
			
		

> 1THz CPU will *NEVER* happen (at least i dont think so)



That's probably like people back in 1975 saying that 3 GHz will never happen.

I wonder how the processor caches will be if we ever hit 1 THz. Probably some where like 1 or 2 GB caches


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## SAAER45

monkeysims said:
			
		

> 1THz CPU will *NEVER* happen





			
				Bill Gates said:
			
		

> Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!



Careful what you say...


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## SC7

Mattu said:
			
		

> That's probably like people back in 1975 saying that 3 GHz will never happen.
> 
> I wonder how the processor caches will be if we ever hit 1 THz. Probably some where like 1 or 2 GB caches


And how long the pipelines would be .


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## Geoff

monkeysims said:
			
		

> 1THz CPU will *NEVER* happen (at least i dont think so)


It seems that way now, since were moving away from the high clock speeds, and moving to more cores.  I think that the clock speeds will continue to inrease slightly, however i think that the future will be trying to have as many cores per CPU as possible.


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## Habanerosky

David Sarnoff CEO of RCA (1955) said:
			
		

> "Television will never be a medium of entertainment"



You never know with technology, they are devoping new busses and caches everyfew years that can handle oodles more traffic. Technology is growing exponentially.

I wouldnt be suprised if the "Tera Era" hits within the next 10-20 yrs. It must be easy enough to make programs and games that would be able to make use of it (think of rendering programs like maya and the like).


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## Mattu

Epic BUMP 

I found this old thread of mine that I started a little over 4 years ago and now I just wanted to see what you all thought of the subject matter since it's now 2010.

I know it seems like were moving toward multiple cores today and the "speed" of processors in GHz's hasn't really changed much in 5 years. So my prediction about this whole "Tera Era" thing is that maybe by the end of this century, we'll (and I say "we'll" like we'll all still be alive ) probably see processors with maybe 20 or more cores that's only pushing about 20 GHz max.


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## Aastii

Mattu said:


> Epic BUMP
> 
> I found this old thread of mine that I started a little over 4 years ago and now I just wanted to see what you all thought of the subject matter since it's now 2010.
> 
> I know it seems like were moving toward multiple cores today and the "speed" of processors in GHz's hasn't really changed much in 5 years. So my prediction about this whole "Tera Era" thing is that maybe by the end of this century, we'll (and I say "we'll" like we'll all still be alive ) probably see processors with maybe 20 or more cores that's only pushing about 20 GHz max.



honestly, I can't see the tera thing happening for a good while yet, not until companies start saying they need more power per core to make the programs they want, rather than more cores, which isn't going to be any time soon I don't think


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## fastdude

Also, supposing we _did_ get processors to Terahertz speeds, the cooling hardware needed would be mammoth, unless cooling also develops sufficiently.
http://www.pcw.co.uk/personal-computer-world/features/2045786/terahertz-chips-hot-handle

This article is ancient, but very interesting


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## lucasbytegenius

Man, going through this thread, people thought TB HDs at $750 were epic. Now they're $60-70! I personally think that we will have faster processors, but that the speed will increase slowly compared to number of cores. People multitask a whole lot more than they used to, probably mostly thanks to easier ways to switch between apps than you could 16-17 years ago. Golly, we could have dual-core smartphones! We have hex-core CPUs now, I think I've seen a dual-core GPU, and the chained GPUs (SLI and such) are doing powerful stuff. 
Also, could someone explain to me the PowerPC architecture? From the "they use special metals and run cooler" post somewhere, my curiosity has arisen.


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## geek0x00

I think that within 100 years we'll have 10 GHz processors with 100 pea-sized cores that runs at 3 TFLOPS. And the word size would be at least 256-bit. And we would have 1 TB of RAM. And a petabyte of hard drive space. And the whole thing would be as small as a laptop. This is the future of the computer!


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## joh06937

to be honest (*puts on flame retardant suit*) i don't even know that desktop computers will even last that long. i personally think that the future is handheld devices. desktops will definitely keep going for a while but once handheld devices can handle things like playing full HD (and higher eventually ) content on televisions (possibly even in 3D) and being able to work in multiple environments such as at home AND at the office (meaning i can use it at home to watch tv or watch movies and then take it to the office and use it to run my monitor and use it to do the things i need to do at work) and can run most games, they'll basically replace any need for large desktop computers. servers and gaming (and other things i'm sure) will probably be the things that'll keep them around the longest. not saying i hope this will happen  but i kind of think it might eventually.

of course, that is just my speculation


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## geek0x00

Here is my prediction for the future of computers:
http://www.computerforum.com/182797-future-computers.html


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## Troncoso

Woo. Just read through every post in this topic. Very interesting stuff. About once per page a new speculation comes along that adds a new twist to the idea. I think jon is right. As much as I hate the ipad, and originally thought of it as a bloated itouch, I think it is the way of the future. Businesses and schools are using it for productivity. I personally still haven't bought a laptop yet as I much prefer my 26 inch screen to 15. Until we can produce holographic technology at a consumer level, then I don't think desktops will go away.


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## Rocko

What about a bio-computer?


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## mep916

lucasbytegenius said:


> Man, going through this thread, people thought TB HDs at $750 were epic. Now they're $60-70!



Yup, I bought the first Hitachi TB released... probably my worst component purchase, due to the price. This was in Aug. 2007.


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## Rocko

mep916 said:


> Yup, I bought the first Hitachi TB released... probably my worst component purchase, due to the price. This was in Aug. 2007.



wow!


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