Citation: There’s plenty of room at the Top: What will drive computer performance after Moore’s law?, Leiserson et al., Science 368, June 5, 2020, p 1079. (with Charles E. Leiserson, Neil C. Thompson, Joel S. Emer, Bradley C. Kuszmaul, Daniel Sanchez, Tao B. Schardl).
Links: Acrobat
Email: b@lampsons.us. This paper is at http://www.research.microsoft.com.
Abstract:
The
miniaturization of semiconductor transistors has driven the growth in computer
performance for more than 50 years. As miniaturization approaches its limits,
bringing an end to Moore’s law, performance gains will need to come from
software, algorithms, and hardware. We refer to these technologies as the “Top”
of the computing stack to distinguish them from the traditional technologies at
the “Bottom”: semiconductor physics and silicon-fabrication technology. In the
post-Moore era, the Top will provide substantial performance gains, but these
gains will be opportunistic, uneven, and sporadic, and they will suffer from
the law of diminishing returns. Big system components offer a promising context
for tackling the challenges of working at the Top.