What do you think about the new CPU structure that might be standard?

[AkumaBao]

Just wondering if any of you have seen this yet. Sounds like a great idea, and looks like the future of CPU's, & compact memory. Here's the link. Pretty crazy, building processors into cubes.

 

[Elledan]

Sounds pretty good. I've yet to see whether they can accomplish this, but if they do, it would be totally marvelous

 

[CTho9305]

The best of course would be a sphere, but you could easily get the same benefit in a cube. I like it a lot!

So why exactly are modern cores (tbird, for example) so tall? how thick is the actual circuitry?

 

[Idontcare]

It is the Si wafer thickness that makes the tbird (or any for that matter) die appear so "thick" or "tall."

The actual thickness of the circuitry is very thin (tens of microns). An analogy for you is if you consider the wafer substrate to be a ten story building then the top six inches of the roof of that building represent the entire circuitry (transistors and up). Standard 200mm Si wafers are ~750 micron thick. If you make them thinner you risk them fracturing more easily inside your fab equipment (vacuum chucks, spin dryers, general handling etc.).

BTW, the 3D chip concept is intersting but what they are not mentioning is the massive cooling requirements if you were to implement this concept into a logic SC such as the tbird, memory runs slower and thus inherently cooler so the current app. is ok.

-Phil

 

[AkumaBao]

Yes, they don't mention the cooling concept, but if you look more into Matrix 3D's processes that's what seperates the dies making it to where we would have probably just cool the sides, and not the top.

 

[Elledan]

Article at Scientific American.

I'm about to read it now