What's next after die shrink for CPUs and GPUs?

[JTsyo]

There's obviously a lower limit for size. What comes once we hit that limit? I've heard of optical based chips but only as theory.

 

[HutchinsonJC]

Materials like gallium arsenide or gallium nitride are already used in some applications.

And gallium is already used with silicon today, I think. Probably just be further refinement of materials to use or combo of materials to use.

I'm sure there's a lot of great minds that have been working on this for years already.

 

[SKORPI0]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nanometer

3.5 nm is a name for the first node beyond 5nm.[16]

In 2018, IMEC and Cadence had taped out 3 nm test chips.[17] Also, Samsung announced that they plan to use Gate-All-Around technology to produce 3nm FETs in 2021.[18]

Possible technologies that have been speculated to be useful or essential to producing chips beyond Moore's Law scaling have included : vortex laser,[19] MOSFET-BJT dual-mode transistor,[20] 3D packaging,[21] microfluidic cooling,[22] PCMOS,[23] vacuum transistors,[24] t-rays,[25] extreme ultraviolet lithography,[26] carbon nanotube transistors,[27] silicon photonics,[28] graphene,[29] phosphorene,[30] organic semiconductors,[31] gallium arsenide,[32] indium gallium arsenide,[33] nano-patterning,[34] and reconfigurable chaos-based microchips.[35]

 

[snoopy7548]

Light-based or quantum computing. We're certainly not going to stay with the electron forever.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Carbon nanotubes technology and beyond. I think we will go up in size again relatively speaking when we are down to 5nm but we will advance. Also , something like diamond cubic may get some love together with the knowledge gained from straining silicon. A decade ago, a South African researcher found something interesting with diamonds. Ballistic conduction research is key.