Will Physical Scalability Sabotage Performance Gains?

  • Authors:
  • Doug Matzke

  • Affiliations:
  • -

  • Venue:
  • Computer
  • Year:
  • 1997

Quantified Score

Hi-index 4.11

Visualization

Abstract

The most important physical trend facing chip architects is the fact that on-chip wires are becoming much slower relative to logic as the on-chip devices shrink. The author points out that it will soon be impossible to maintain one global clock over the entire chip, and sending signals across a billion-transistor processor may require as many as 20 cycles.