I personally love a strong tasting beer. To me, if I am going to shovel out $8 or more for an 8 pack of beer, I want something that has some taste to it. My brothers-in-law are just the opposite of me and both are fans of Bud Light which to me is tantamount to water dyed to look like beer. One thing nice about a strong beer is that if it's too strong, you can always water it down a little on your own whereas a weak beer you have no way to make it stronger.
The same goes for politics. You can always water down your brand but it's virtually impossible to make it stronger. That is what is essentially happening to the GOP this year with the addition of Trump in the race. He has brought with him a large assortment of "independents" to the GOP to vote for him. While the GOP has been trying to expand their tent in recent years, this expansion has weakened the brand considerably like adding water to your beer.
I have never understood people who choose to not to choose sides. To me they are nothing but a bunch of cowards who don't know their own mind or values. Whenever I hear a person proudly pronounce to the world "Oh. I'm an independent!", I would want to say to them, "You mean you don't care about your country at all??". At least with Libertarians, you've made a choice for a third party, but independents isn't a party at all. It has no values, no core, no platform and no candidates. Personally I thing the GOP should require ALL primaries to be closed-primaries. After all, do you really want a bunch of fence-sitting-cowards to be allowed to choose your parties candidate?
Oh I can hear the independents who might be reading this now saying, "Who's he to call me a coward! I just don't agree with everything the GOP stands for and so I choose to be an independent". Well, do some research on all the parties available to you: Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Socialist, Communist. At least ONE of them must appeal to you at least 60,70% or more. I don't even agree with everything the Libertarians stand for but I do agree with about 80%.
I think the reason the term independent appeals to so many is 2 reasons. One, they don't have to commit. Like the guy who would rather live with his girl-friend and get the sex for free, independents don't want to commit to anything. They feel that somehow they can avoid any confrontation by staying out of the fight altogether. The second reason is they can never lose (of course they never win either). No matter who gets into the White House in November their person didn't lose, because they didn't have a horse in the race to begin with. They therefore save their pride and their little egos (what little they have) from being crushed.
So now the GOP will have to live with watered-down-beer this election. They will have to probably march into November behind a spray-tanned con-man with no values and no plans other than to "Make America Great Again!". The media is already queuing up their endless in-depth investigations into Trumps fake university, fake investments, over-exaggerated wealth, past marriages, past sins against women and other minorities. They will pummel Trump like a pinata at a birthday party for a class of 8 year-old boys with ADD and hyped up on soda and candy.
The question for the GOP is this. Is it worth it? Maybe their only option is to broker a better candidate and hope all the "independents" that came in for Trump will stay home on November and not vote for Hillary. I can't say if that will happen or not. It's a big gamble
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your MIND
Friday, March 4, 2016
Monday, February 29, 2016
Choosing the lesser of 2 evils .... or not
Back in 1987 I was working in Massachusetts and I was on a company softball league of other fellow engineers. Even though I grew playing sports, sadly that was not the case for many of my peers on the team. We decided on a team name called : None of the Above. To illustrate its meaning our shirts were printed with a check-off-list of items related to the question at the top that said
"Our team can: "
On Facebook a friend named Barbara posted, "We must select the lesser of 2 evils" to which I responded, "Would you vote for Hitler if the only other choice was Stalin?". Their answer was simply "No". Of course no one is calling Trump Hitler or Hillary Stalin but it goes to show you that not all choices are simply between the lesser of 2 evils and sometimes it's none-of-the-above.
As a Christian, some often make you feel like "not-voting" or "voting for a 3rd party" is some sort of mortal and unforgivable sin. Back in 1992, a fairly large group of disaffected voters cast their vote for an outsider by the name of Ross Perot who had caught the eye of many Republicans for his "no-nonsense-approach" to government spending. As this split the GOP vote, it allowed Bill Clinton to come into the White House with a dismal 42% of the vote. And the same might happen again, only instead of the vote being split between 2 people it could be split between Trump and that other outsider candidate called "none of the above". But if you recall, from the 1992 election what happened was of not much consequence. We are still here. The world still spins on its axis and God still reigns.
People get their necks all out of joint on this issue. They almost turn purple in the face when they say "Do you want Hillary to roll into office?", like as if the world is going to end. Of course I don't want Hillary in office, but I won't sacrifice my morals and faith to do that. I will still vote, but it will probably be a write-in for Ted Cruz instead. How have we gone from George Washington, who tried as hard as he could be be ethical, moral and straight with the American people to voting for a man who lies, cheats, calls people stupid, ugly, liars, dumb, and says he can't remember asking God for forgiveness for anything.
Jesus said, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and earth". The political system here is just a temporary system until God comes to make all things right. The Constitution did not come down from Mount Sinai with the 10 commandments. It's a man-made invention and an attempt to bring a just system to help us get along. I personally think its the best one we have going so far that allows the most personal freedom, but not everyone likes freedom (sad). God will still reign on his throne and will still accomplish his goals for our world somehow, even if Hillary becomes POTUS. The people of Israel were often frustrated in trying to understand God's will for them. They wanted to return back to the good old years of King David or King Solomon, but they were constantly under other peoples control. First it was Alexander the Great and then later it was the Roman Empire. They tried everything they could to fix the situation, but nothing seemed to change. Yet it was through the Greek and Roman Empires that God brought the Messiah. These empires made it possible and also easier to spread the gospel to millions of more people. God's will was accomplished.
Maybe our desire for a new "Reagan" is much like their need for a new "King David". It's a selfish desire and a short-sighted goal and not in keeping with God's will at this time.
And really, isn't God's will what it's really about in the end?
"Our team can: "
- Hit
- Catch
- Pitch
- Run
- None of the Above
On Facebook a friend named Barbara posted, "We must select the lesser of 2 evils" to which I responded, "Would you vote for Hitler if the only other choice was Stalin?". Their answer was simply "No". Of course no one is calling Trump Hitler or Hillary Stalin but it goes to show you that not all choices are simply between the lesser of 2 evils and sometimes it's none-of-the-above.
As a Christian, some often make you feel like "not-voting" or "voting for a 3rd party" is some sort of mortal and unforgivable sin. Back in 1992, a fairly large group of disaffected voters cast their vote for an outsider by the name of Ross Perot who had caught the eye of many Republicans for his "no-nonsense-approach" to government spending. As this split the GOP vote, it allowed Bill Clinton to come into the White House with a dismal 42% of the vote. And the same might happen again, only instead of the vote being split between 2 people it could be split between Trump and that other outsider candidate called "none of the above". But if you recall, from the 1992 election what happened was of not much consequence. We are still here. The world still spins on its axis and God still reigns.
People get their necks all out of joint on this issue. They almost turn purple in the face when they say "Do you want Hillary to roll into office?", like as if the world is going to end. Of course I don't want Hillary in office, but I won't sacrifice my morals and faith to do that. I will still vote, but it will probably be a write-in for Ted Cruz instead. How have we gone from George Washington, who tried as hard as he could be be ethical, moral and straight with the American people to voting for a man who lies, cheats, calls people stupid, ugly, liars, dumb, and says he can't remember asking God for forgiveness for anything.
Jesus said, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and earth". The political system here is just a temporary system until God comes to make all things right. The Constitution did not come down from Mount Sinai with the 10 commandments. It's a man-made invention and an attempt to bring a just system to help us get along. I personally think its the best one we have going so far that allows the most personal freedom, but not everyone likes freedom (sad). God will still reign on his throne and will still accomplish his goals for our world somehow, even if Hillary becomes POTUS. The people of Israel were often frustrated in trying to understand God's will for them. They wanted to return back to the good old years of King David or King Solomon, but they were constantly under other peoples control. First it was Alexander the Great and then later it was the Roman Empire. They tried everything they could to fix the situation, but nothing seemed to change. Yet it was through the Greek and Roman Empires that God brought the Messiah. These empires made it possible and also easier to spread the gospel to millions of more people. God's will was accomplished.
Maybe our desire for a new "Reagan" is much like their need for a new "King David". It's a selfish desire and a short-sighted goal and not in keeping with God's will at this time.
And really, isn't God's will what it's really about in the end?
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Do you ignore bad information on purpose?
Several years ago I remember reading an article that said humans are programmed to ignore information that is severely traumatizing. This is referred to as "intentional blindness". An example of this was a case when an airplane mid-flight had an engine catch fire and was forced to return to the airport. While no one was hurt, many people on the side of the plane where the engine was reported looking out the planes window and seeing nothing wrong despite flames clearly seen coming out the back of the engine. Some theorize its the brains own coping mechanism to handle stressful situations.
We all do it to some level. Parents do it when their son or daughter is not doing well at school and they pull away from the family and become reclusive. We tell ourselves "it's just a phase" or "normal teenage rebellion", when in reality they are skipping school, getting caught with drugs and becoming an addict. Eventually something happens that forces the parent out of their intentional blindness to wake them up and get them back to what is really going on. Hopefully before it's too late.
I have also seen this intentional blindness in the news lately. Recently Wall Street has been crumbling under the fall of global oil prices. Normally the fall of oil would be a cause of celebration on Wall Street as it would mean lower gas prices and therefore more money for Americans to spend as well as lower energy costs for corporations which would lead to larger profits. But today we live in an upside down world. The fall in oil prices is from a fall in demand for oil which means we are seeing the advent of a global recession. The reason is simple. Oil is so needed for a growing economy (energy, chemicals, plastics etc.) that if the demand is down it means that the economy is slowing and therefore Wall Street falls. So what is Wall Streets answer? Have these countries cut their production and bring oil prices back up (law of supply and demand says prices rise either when demand increases or supply falls). Is the recession over? No. It's just covered up the problem. Demand is still down and the recession continues. But for Wall Street they pretend its all fine now and the stock market "rallies" on the news. This also shows that Wall Street is no longer connected to Main-Street. Where as in the past lower gas prices was a good thing and higher gas prices was a bad thing, now it just doesn't matter at all what happens to us as a nation. Wall Streets rules have no bearing on how things go in the real world at all. It's all just a game to them. But their game is short sighted. Had they let oil prices continue to fall, we would be better off. Families would have more disposable income. Small businesses would have more profits to hire more people. Profits would go up. Un-employment would go down. Wall Street would eventually see REAL profits come back (not just ones on paper) and would have real good news to celebrate.
This intentional blindness is not limited to the stock brokers on Wall Street either. Recently I was talking to another co-worker about how the technology world is headed for a cliff when it can no longer continue doubling the number of transistors on a chip every 2 years. I wrote in a former piece about how the transistors are so small now that the width of the transistor is so small that the number of silicon atoms it takes to make one is in the low double digits now (about 40). In order to cut the size by half would mean we would have to go down to 20,10,5,2,1 (5 more doubles) and most feel you can't go past 10 atoms with any amount of reliability. Faced with this FACT, my co-worker simply shrugged and said, "Oh I am sure they will figure out a way" and moved on. He is not alone. Most people in my field don't want to face this immutable fact either and are making no plans for their future. I have been in the business for 30 years and I have lived through 15 "doublings" but most kids coming out of college now with computer engineering degrees will only see 1-2 more doublings. Then what? Cross that bridge when it comes?
The same happened when I first started work in 1986. My first job was at a company called Data General in Westboro Massachusetts. It was an off-shoot of Digital Corporation and made deep-freezer sized computers called "mini-computers" (mini because they were smaller than large IBM main-frames). To those at Data General mini-computers were all the rage and new small micro-computers were scoffed at. How could these little computers take on the large takes these mini-computers could do? To them, mini-computers were always going to be around and most of the workers there continued their work like all was well. But we all know now mini-computers became out-dated dinosaurs of the technology world. They just could not compete. Those at the top of the company became victims of their own intentional blindness.
Where do you allow yourself to be intentionally blinded to the facts? At home? At work? Our political system? Our financial system? Knowing this, what changes would you make? Like those on the airplane who shut their windows and pretended all was fine with the engines, maybe they would have started preparing for a crash landing or alerting others to what the problem was.
We all do it to some level. Parents do it when their son or daughter is not doing well at school and they pull away from the family and become reclusive. We tell ourselves "it's just a phase" or "normal teenage rebellion", when in reality they are skipping school, getting caught with drugs and becoming an addict. Eventually something happens that forces the parent out of their intentional blindness to wake them up and get them back to what is really going on. Hopefully before it's too late.
I have also seen this intentional blindness in the news lately. Recently Wall Street has been crumbling under the fall of global oil prices. Normally the fall of oil would be a cause of celebration on Wall Street as it would mean lower gas prices and therefore more money for Americans to spend as well as lower energy costs for corporations which would lead to larger profits. But today we live in an upside down world. The fall in oil prices is from a fall in demand for oil which means we are seeing the advent of a global recession. The reason is simple. Oil is so needed for a growing economy (energy, chemicals, plastics etc.) that if the demand is down it means that the economy is slowing and therefore Wall Street falls. So what is Wall Streets answer? Have these countries cut their production and bring oil prices back up (law of supply and demand says prices rise either when demand increases or supply falls). Is the recession over? No. It's just covered up the problem. Demand is still down and the recession continues. But for Wall Street they pretend its all fine now and the stock market "rallies" on the news. This also shows that Wall Street is no longer connected to Main-Street. Where as in the past lower gas prices was a good thing and higher gas prices was a bad thing, now it just doesn't matter at all what happens to us as a nation. Wall Streets rules have no bearing on how things go in the real world at all. It's all just a game to them. But their game is short sighted. Had they let oil prices continue to fall, we would be better off. Families would have more disposable income. Small businesses would have more profits to hire more people. Profits would go up. Un-employment would go down. Wall Street would eventually see REAL profits come back (not just ones on paper) and would have real good news to celebrate.
This intentional blindness is not limited to the stock brokers on Wall Street either. Recently I was talking to another co-worker about how the technology world is headed for a cliff when it can no longer continue doubling the number of transistors on a chip every 2 years. I wrote in a former piece about how the transistors are so small now that the width of the transistor is so small that the number of silicon atoms it takes to make one is in the low double digits now (about 40). In order to cut the size by half would mean we would have to go down to 20,10,5,2,1 (5 more doubles) and most feel you can't go past 10 atoms with any amount of reliability. Faced with this FACT, my co-worker simply shrugged and said, "Oh I am sure they will figure out a way" and moved on. He is not alone. Most people in my field don't want to face this immutable fact either and are making no plans for their future. I have been in the business for 30 years and I have lived through 15 "doublings" but most kids coming out of college now with computer engineering degrees will only see 1-2 more doublings. Then what? Cross that bridge when it comes?
The same happened when I first started work in 1986. My first job was at a company called Data General in Westboro Massachusetts. It was an off-shoot of Digital Corporation and made deep-freezer sized computers called "mini-computers" (mini because they were smaller than large IBM main-frames). To those at Data General mini-computers were all the rage and new small micro-computers were scoffed at. How could these little computers take on the large takes these mini-computers could do? To them, mini-computers were always going to be around and most of the workers there continued their work like all was well. But we all know now mini-computers became out-dated dinosaurs of the technology world. They just could not compete. Those at the top of the company became victims of their own intentional blindness.
Where do you allow yourself to be intentionally blinded to the facts? At home? At work? Our political system? Our financial system? Knowing this, what changes would you make? Like those on the airplane who shut their windows and pretended all was fine with the engines, maybe they would have started preparing for a crash landing or alerting others to what the problem was.
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
God has never been on America's side
As I've grown older (I am now 51 as I write this) my attitude of God and Country has changed. When I was younger I grew up in the Cold War days in which many Christians felt that a war of good verses evil was taking place between Communist Russia and the USA. We watched the Olympics as a competition between God and Satan taking place on a human arena. It was all very black and white.
Today the war between the US and Russia still flares up with Putin moving into the Ukraine and his support for the leader of Syria. New threats have also emerged with the rise of ISIS and many other anti-Jewish and anti-Christian religious coalitions that threaten our freedoms and our lives around the world. Many feel the US should stand up to these threats and in doing so believe God is on our side in our decisions.
That is how I too used to think.
But now I don't think God is on our side. God is on God's side and he will do as he will to save as many as he can for eternity. Take for example the story of Jonah , the reluctant prophet. During his life, Israel was under attack of the Assyrians and they had taken away 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel as slaves, never to be heard from again. Yet God wanted to save an Assyrian city by the name of Nineveh. Jonah had other thoughts on the matter. He ran away on a boat headed as far west as it could take him and it took a whale to bring him back. Why? Not because he didn't think it worth going. No. Because he knew God would save Nineveh and spare them the destruction. Jonah wanted nothing to do with it. God was on Israel's side, how could he do this? Answer, because he loves them. God had a plan and he was going to make it happen no matter what Jonah thought on the matter.
We also, look at ISIS as they call for our destruction and rape, pillage and murder innocent Christians and other people they don't agree with. We, like Jonah, want God to obliterate them and send them to hell for all the evil they have brought to this world. But God calls us to love them and pray for them and return good for evil. We must somehow try to seem them as people trapped by Satan and used as pawns. We must look beyond the physical as Paul says, "We don't fight against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities in the heavenly realms". God has a plan to ultimately destroy the evil in the world, but now he must see to it that as many people can be saved as possible. I am not saying we don't use our worldly military force to squash evil where it exists in this world and threatens our existence. No, we need to stand up to evil whenever and wherever we can. But it cannot be our only response. We must pray for the people in these countries that God's word and Gospel can reach them too.
I see God using this present evil to show the world that it cannot hide in ignorance of pretending that evil does not exist anymore. It cannot pretend that somehow we created an inoculation against it and eradicated like Polio or Small Pox. It's still here and you must decide which side you are on. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, ISIS, the list goes on of people and groups that God has allowed to rise up and show us that sin and evil persist and man is not impervious to their plans as you might think. Evil is not a pre-1900 issue, but is a 2016 and beyond issue.
Next, we must stop thinking that somehow God's support of us can be bought by performing the right kinds of deeds or electing the right kind of leaders. I cringe whenever I hear a Christian leader in the media make the plea to "Put God back into America", like as if he is a misplaced item on a shelf. God uses who he wills for his purpose. Did God use the Roman Empire? Of course he did. Even though the Jews prayed constantly for Rome to be removed from their country and restore the kingdom to David's line God had other better plans.
One good thing I see of ISIS is it has caused the media to take a closer look at Islam and Christianity. Recently I saw a piece that did a fair comparison contrast between the two religions and the differences could not be more stark. Would this have ever happened without ISIS? Probably not. Most would go on their merry and ignorant path of "All religions are the same" but now they could not do that anymore. Something was different and it needed to be looked at closer. Maybe those people doing their research into these differences will be brought to faith in Christ. Maybe people on the religious fence will finally choose a side to be on. Maybe those who would never had cracked a bible in the past will finally read some passages and see Jesus beyond the TV sitcom references. Maybe those in Europe who thought religion issues were non-issues who now see their culture being transformed by the massive influx of people from the Middle East will need to return to their religious roots and take a stand against this slow invasion of their lands.
Whatever the case may be, God's will is being done and his goal for us and all of humanity is being fulfilled.
Today the war between the US and Russia still flares up with Putin moving into the Ukraine and his support for the leader of Syria. New threats have also emerged with the rise of ISIS and many other anti-Jewish and anti-Christian religious coalitions that threaten our freedoms and our lives around the world. Many feel the US should stand up to these threats and in doing so believe God is on our side in our decisions.
That is how I too used to think.
But now I don't think God is on our side. God is on God's side and he will do as he will to save as many as he can for eternity. Take for example the story of Jonah , the reluctant prophet. During his life, Israel was under attack of the Assyrians and they had taken away 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel as slaves, never to be heard from again. Yet God wanted to save an Assyrian city by the name of Nineveh. Jonah had other thoughts on the matter. He ran away on a boat headed as far west as it could take him and it took a whale to bring him back. Why? Not because he didn't think it worth going. No. Because he knew God would save Nineveh and spare them the destruction. Jonah wanted nothing to do with it. God was on Israel's side, how could he do this? Answer, because he loves them. God had a plan and he was going to make it happen no matter what Jonah thought on the matter.
We also, look at ISIS as they call for our destruction and rape, pillage and murder innocent Christians and other people they don't agree with. We, like Jonah, want God to obliterate them and send them to hell for all the evil they have brought to this world. But God calls us to love them and pray for them and return good for evil. We must somehow try to seem them as people trapped by Satan and used as pawns. We must look beyond the physical as Paul says, "We don't fight against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities in the heavenly realms". God has a plan to ultimately destroy the evil in the world, but now he must see to it that as many people can be saved as possible. I am not saying we don't use our worldly military force to squash evil where it exists in this world and threatens our existence. No, we need to stand up to evil whenever and wherever we can. But it cannot be our only response. We must pray for the people in these countries that God's word and Gospel can reach them too.
I see God using this present evil to show the world that it cannot hide in ignorance of pretending that evil does not exist anymore. It cannot pretend that somehow we created an inoculation against it and eradicated like Polio or Small Pox. It's still here and you must decide which side you are on. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, ISIS, the list goes on of people and groups that God has allowed to rise up and show us that sin and evil persist and man is not impervious to their plans as you might think. Evil is not a pre-1900 issue, but is a 2016 and beyond issue.
Next, we must stop thinking that somehow God's support of us can be bought by performing the right kinds of deeds or electing the right kind of leaders. I cringe whenever I hear a Christian leader in the media make the plea to "Put God back into America", like as if he is a misplaced item on a shelf. God uses who he wills for his purpose. Did God use the Roman Empire? Of course he did. Even though the Jews prayed constantly for Rome to be removed from their country and restore the kingdom to David's line God had other better plans.
One good thing I see of ISIS is it has caused the media to take a closer look at Islam and Christianity. Recently I saw a piece that did a fair comparison contrast between the two religions and the differences could not be more stark. Would this have ever happened without ISIS? Probably not. Most would go on their merry and ignorant path of "All religions are the same" but now they could not do that anymore. Something was different and it needed to be looked at closer. Maybe those people doing their research into these differences will be brought to faith in Christ. Maybe people on the religious fence will finally choose a side to be on. Maybe those who would never had cracked a bible in the past will finally read some passages and see Jesus beyond the TV sitcom references. Maybe those in Europe who thought religion issues were non-issues who now see their culture being transformed by the massive influx of people from the Middle East will need to return to their religious roots and take a stand against this slow invasion of their lands.
Whatever the case may be, God's will is being done and his goal for us and all of humanity is being fulfilled.
Monday, January 25, 2016
Faith: Where's the boundary?
The world is full of invisible boundaries that are hard to define. We like to draw borders and boundaries. Some boundaries are easy, like rivers, mountains, or oceans. This is my side and that is your side. Boundaries help us simplify our world. I don't have to fix everyone's problems, I just have to fix our problems. I can take care of my side of the fence in my backyard without worrying about your side of the fence.
But not all borders are easily identified. Take for example where is the boundary of our solar system. When I was a kid we were all taught that Pluto was the last of the 9 planets in our solar system. So to many, that defined the end of our solar system. Simple right? Then Pluto got demoted from a planet to planet-like object. Did the boundary move in to Neptune then? No. It just changed our definition of a planet. Some scientists thought the edge of our solar system goes out to the Heliosphere, which is the point at which our solar wind from our sun meats the incoming solar wind from other systems and changes direction. But even now there are speculations that is not correct as there is mathematically proven theories that there may well be a Neptune sized planet circling the sun way past this that could be the cause of comets from the far regions of space to enter our system every several thousand years or so.
So where does our solar system end and the rest of the galaxy begin? No one really knows and there does not seem to be definable boundary to point to either.
Another one of those invisible boundaries is where is the boundary between personal faith and public policy. Where does my faith-sphere end and the public-sphere begin? Does it end when I leave my church or Christian school? What about in my house or on my front lawn? What about my cars bumper? What about my time at work? Does it cease to exist in these realms?
This question is as old as time itself. In ancient Rome, the public was expected to show their allegiance to the emperor by coming to the city square and lighting a candle and saying "Caesar is god!". Today some get their heads all out of joint over just the use of "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, but here you were asked to say the leader is God himself! Imagine today having to say "Obama is god!". Would that be appalling to almost everyone in our country? This was an issue with the early Christians. This statement of faith went in direct opposition to their core beliefs. But by their non-conformity, they placed themselves in a perilous place as many considered them to be "traitors" to the empire and worthy of death.
In Israel, the Jews also took issue with the worship of the emperor. Ancient Romans had on their coin "To the Divine Augustus" which called Augustus a god. Jews took issue with this and often refused to use the Roman coin because it made them break the 1st command (Thou shalt not have any gods before me). When Jesus was asked if they should pay taxes to Caesar (this was before the Rome gave them the new coins) Jesus asked for a coin and asked "Whose image is this and whose coin is this?" and the crowd answered "Caesars", to which Jesus said, "Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's". Meaning, Caesar minted the coin and therefore owns what is printed on it. You did not mint it therefore you are not held responsible for what it says. We are to give to God and others what God demands.
Does Jesus give us a definable border? Not exactly. In some ways I think Jesus is telling us "There are no clear answers here. You figure it out for yourselves".
Today in our country no one is going to prison for their faith (yet) and no one is being thrown into a den of lions for anyone's viewing pleasure, but some are being forced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to a government for their non-conformity of paying homage to gay marriage. To these brave people their faith was not left at the doorway of the church. They were not the bigots others in the media have made them out to be. Instead they have reached out to the gay community with love and respect to show them that their decision has nothing to do with "hating gays" but instead not wanting to make a confession that was in direct conflict with their faith. This invisible boundary is like the Heliosphere mentioned earlier where the solar wind pushing out from our sun meets the solar wind of other stars pushing in. To them, making a gay-wedding cake was a confession about marriage that was not in keeping with their biblical faith that marriage is only between a man and a woman and is no different than lighting a candle and saying "Caesar is god!" or minting the coin that calls the emperor a god.
Today the external solar-wind is strong and seeks to subdue those of faith with large fines and court ordered "re-education classes" and regular government reviews on their progress. These cases may well be the proving grounds for other cases that may arise in the future. If people of faith must subdue their beliefs when in conflict with the state, then there may be no boundary left from which to fight or resist.
To be fair, there have been times when the faith wind blew too strong and extended farther than what it should have. This happens whenever a group, no matter how noble, comes to power as the majority. We want to make our own little heaven on earth rather than wait for the real one that is to come. We wrongly imprisoned and put into mental hospitals the homosexuals and labelled them deviants so we didn't have to interact with them. We ostracized divorced woman and treated them shabbily along with woman who were victims of domestic abuse or rape. These were wrong. We shut the doors to these people and cut them off from any conversation we might have with them in the future.
To some extent, faith is personal. Some have it. Some don't. We just have to let them go. Take for example, Jesus interaction with a "rich young ruler" who wants to go to heaven but doesn't want to sell all his possessions and follow Jesus as he was requested. The gospel writer says, "at this the mans face fell and he walked away sad because he had great wealth". Did Jesus order him to be beaten or punished? No. Did he call him names? No. Did he beg for the man to come back? No. He simply let him go and kept open the communication channels if the person in the future wanted to change his mind.
We must be the same way in the dealings with those who have no faith or are opposed to how we believe. Disagree but love them anyway.
In the end I think we must all agree that there is no defined boundary or border to say, "this far you can go and no further". The "winds of change" will strengthen and weaken over time and the boundary will move and someone will always be unhappy with where it is located.
But not all borders are easily identified. Take for example where is the boundary of our solar system. When I was a kid we were all taught that Pluto was the last of the 9 planets in our solar system. So to many, that defined the end of our solar system. Simple right? Then Pluto got demoted from a planet to planet-like object. Did the boundary move in to Neptune then? No. It just changed our definition of a planet. Some scientists thought the edge of our solar system goes out to the Heliosphere, which is the point at which our solar wind from our sun meats the incoming solar wind from other systems and changes direction. But even now there are speculations that is not correct as there is mathematically proven theories that there may well be a Neptune sized planet circling the sun way past this that could be the cause of comets from the far regions of space to enter our system every several thousand years or so.
So where does our solar system end and the rest of the galaxy begin? No one really knows and there does not seem to be definable boundary to point to either.
Another one of those invisible boundaries is where is the boundary between personal faith and public policy. Where does my faith-sphere end and the public-sphere begin? Does it end when I leave my church or Christian school? What about in my house or on my front lawn? What about my cars bumper? What about my time at work? Does it cease to exist in these realms?
This question is as old as time itself. In ancient Rome, the public was expected to show their allegiance to the emperor by coming to the city square and lighting a candle and saying "Caesar is god!". Today some get their heads all out of joint over just the use of "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, but here you were asked to say the leader is God himself! Imagine today having to say "Obama is god!". Would that be appalling to almost everyone in our country? This was an issue with the early Christians. This statement of faith went in direct opposition to their core beliefs. But by their non-conformity, they placed themselves in a perilous place as many considered them to be "traitors" to the empire and worthy of death.
In Israel, the Jews also took issue with the worship of the emperor. Ancient Romans had on their coin "To the Divine Augustus" which called Augustus a god. Jews took issue with this and often refused to use the Roman coin because it made them break the 1st command (Thou shalt not have any gods before me). When Jesus was asked if they should pay taxes to Caesar (this was before the Rome gave them the new coins) Jesus asked for a coin and asked "Whose image is this and whose coin is this?" and the crowd answered "Caesars", to which Jesus said, "Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's". Meaning, Caesar minted the coin and therefore owns what is printed on it. You did not mint it therefore you are not held responsible for what it says. We are to give to God and others what God demands.
Does Jesus give us a definable border? Not exactly. In some ways I think Jesus is telling us "There are no clear answers here. You figure it out for yourselves".
Today in our country no one is going to prison for their faith (yet) and no one is being thrown into a den of lions for anyone's viewing pleasure, but some are being forced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to a government for their non-conformity of paying homage to gay marriage. To these brave people their faith was not left at the doorway of the church. They were not the bigots others in the media have made them out to be. Instead they have reached out to the gay community with love and respect to show them that their decision has nothing to do with "hating gays" but instead not wanting to make a confession that was in direct conflict with their faith. This invisible boundary is like the Heliosphere mentioned earlier where the solar wind pushing out from our sun meets the solar wind of other stars pushing in. To them, making a gay-wedding cake was a confession about marriage that was not in keeping with their biblical faith that marriage is only between a man and a woman and is no different than lighting a candle and saying "Caesar is god!" or minting the coin that calls the emperor a god.
Today the external solar-wind is strong and seeks to subdue those of faith with large fines and court ordered "re-education classes" and regular government reviews on their progress. These cases may well be the proving grounds for other cases that may arise in the future. If people of faith must subdue their beliefs when in conflict with the state, then there may be no boundary left from which to fight or resist.
To be fair, there have been times when the faith wind blew too strong and extended farther than what it should have. This happens whenever a group, no matter how noble, comes to power as the majority. We want to make our own little heaven on earth rather than wait for the real one that is to come. We wrongly imprisoned and put into mental hospitals the homosexuals and labelled them deviants so we didn't have to interact with them. We ostracized divorced woman and treated them shabbily along with woman who were victims of domestic abuse or rape. These were wrong. We shut the doors to these people and cut them off from any conversation we might have with them in the future.
To some extent, faith is personal. Some have it. Some don't. We just have to let them go. Take for example, Jesus interaction with a "rich young ruler" who wants to go to heaven but doesn't want to sell all his possessions and follow Jesus as he was requested. The gospel writer says, "at this the mans face fell and he walked away sad because he had great wealth". Did Jesus order him to be beaten or punished? No. Did he call him names? No. Did he beg for the man to come back? No. He simply let him go and kept open the communication channels if the person in the future wanted to change his mind.
We must be the same way in the dealings with those who have no faith or are opposed to how we believe. Disagree but love them anyway.
In the end I think we must all agree that there is no defined boundary or border to say, "this far you can go and no further". The "winds of change" will strengthen and weaken over time and the boundary will move and someone will always be unhappy with where it is located.
Friday, January 15, 2016
Future of Semiconductors
People love to extrapolate the future by taking what has happened in the last 50 years and use that
as the measuring stick of what will happen in the next 50 years, especially when it comes to computers and the digital age. When we look back at the 1950's and the ENIAC computer which was built using vacuum tubes and took up a whole room the size of a medium house and compare that with the processing power we have in our pockets with our smart phones we just can't believe what is yet to come. We take that little piece of data and try to predict what will be the processing power of the future be like in our phones or on our wrists or even in our brains in the NEXT 50 years. Will computers have the processing power of our brains? Will they become self-aware?
Most of this has been built on a prediction by Gordon Moore who in the 1960's predicted that the number of transistors on a chip would double every 2 years thus doubling our computation power every 2 years as well. This has been called: Moore's Law. For much of the later half of the 20th century this "law" (which is more a prediction than a law) was very accurate and seemingly unstoppable as every 2 years companies like Intel punched out chips twice as many transistors on them. This prediction also provided companies like Intel to plan way into the future and develop highly complex chips long before there were chips large enough to contain them.
Sadly however, just recently this "law" was broken. For the first time in over 50 years, the law "stumbled" and took Intel 3 years to reach its next doubling instead of 2. But even if it was a simple stumble the question remains. Can we double the number of transistors to infinity?
The answer to that question is of course: "No of course not!". In order to double the number of transistors on the same size die (or chip) would require you to make the transistors 1/2 their area. This shrinkage must reduce the width and length by a factor of .7071 (or square root of 2 divided by 2) in order to do this. Chip manufactures have done this by reducing their process size from 80 nano-meter(nm) to 56nm to 40nm to 28nm to 20nm to 14nm and so on.
But how big is 1 nano-meter? To give you some scale, the radius of an average Silicon atom (which is what makes up most of the computer chip) is 0.541 nano-meters wide. This means that 1 nano-meter is only about 2 Silicon atoms wide. This means that a chip using a 14nm process means its transistors are approximately 14/0.541 = 25 atoms wide on average. A 10nm process would be only 18 atoms wide. Of course this would mean that the absolute smallest you could go is 0.541 nm (1 atom) which is only 6 "Moore's-Law-Doublings" (Si atom widths: 13, 9, 6 ,4 ,2, 1) left to go, if you could go that far, but in all practicality you cannot.
Most physicists believe that 5nm is about as far as you can go for the following reasons
Quantum Tunneling
Around 5nm you begin to run into some quantum-physics issues where electrons can pass through barriers without going through them. This is called quantum-tunneling and would make the transistors "leak" electrons from one side of the transistor to the other. Since the transistors only purpose is to act as a tiny electrical switch, a switch that allows electrons to flow through even in the "off" position is not a good switch anymore.
Silicon Migration
Electrons flowing through silicon and act as tiny bullets or cannonballs as they occasionally hit the atoms nucleus (they do not actually collide, but their electric fields interact very strongly and bounce off of each other) and physically move the atoms around over time. When transistors are large in size, a little atomic movement is acceptable and not even noticeable. But with very small transistors that are only a few atoms wide they can be disastrous and make the transistor stop working. This means that chips will not be able to last as long as they once were. For some applications this is not an issue, but for areas like automobiles and safety it will be a problem.
Defect Effect.
When chips are made small electrical connections are laid out using a process called photo-lithography. A chip is not made with just a single photo-lithography step, but instead is made by repeating the processes 100's of times over to draw different parts of the design ranging from the transistors to the intricate levels of metal connections to wire it all together. The smaller the geometries of the devices being drawn the more difficult it become to make sure things are adequately lined up so they connect where they should connect and don't connect where they should not connect. Each process step must line up with all the process steps before it. If there are 100 steps then likelihood that a chip makes it through correctly is P to the 100th power where P is the accuracy of lining up with the silicon. If you want an 90% yield you would need P = 0.9 ^ (0.01) = 99.894% As the geometries decrease this target becomes more and more difficult to hit as the tolerances for aligning become increasingly tighter. These alignment issues stem from 2 main issues: thermal vibration and physical vibration.
Thermal vibration is caused by the heat of the chip. The warmer the material the more the atoms are vibrating (heat is simply the measurement of atomic vibration). This vibration is not noticeable to the naked eye, but at the microscopic level it can look like a massive earthquake. Since all matter naturally vibrates from thermal interactions the tolerances become such that super-cooling will be necessary to limit these vibrations during the manufacturing process.
Physical vibrations stem from factory induced causes such as: noise, floor vibrations, and earth vibrations (small tremors). Even the smallest sound can sometimes be enough to affect the production. So much so, that most many workers in semiconductor fabs use sign-language to communicate rather than speaking to each other. To reduce this activity further may require fabrication processes to either be done in orbit above the earth or use superconducting magnets to allow the fab to hover above the earth. Both of these technologies would be prohibitively expensive to do.
Of course there have been some laboratory experiments showing transistors as small as 3nm using other substances like Graphene which is a carbon nanotube structure. But these "experiments" only work on single transistors with no real way to produce them in the billions and assemble them in such a way that they can be considered production worthy.
The Economic Factor
This last fact, is really what brings to light the most limiting factor of Moore's Law. It's not just about "can we do it" , but instead "can we do it cost efficiently". Lots of smart people working in academia today are trying to solve the problem. But most of them are only looking at the physics of the problem and not so much the economics of the problem. Sure you can show a single transistor under a microscope functioning at 3nm in size. Now repeat that processes 10 billion times and do it for less than $50. This is where the rubber meets the road and most academic papers skid off into the ditch.
What does this mean for the future of computing?
It means things are going to change in a hurry.
Removing the "fat"
Designs will have to go on a diet. Many designs have built in "fat" (unused logic) for a variety of purposes.
Hand Layout
Much of our designs today are laid out (where transistors are put and how signals are routed to different logic on the chip) by computer programs. These programs are good, but many times they get lost "seeing the forest through all the trees" and waste a lot of space on chips. In many cases, humans can still do better jobs on some of this logic using creative thinking and knowing more about what is important and what is not so important. In the 1980's and 1990's much of our processor chips were laid out this way and in the future we may return back to it again.
Re-use, Re-use, Re-use
Many companies today are already moving toward the re-use model of technology. They are developing Intellectual Property Blocks (also known as "Hard-IP blocks") that can be assembled quickly and efficiently by engineers to reduce their R&D costs to their absolute minimum. This coupled with the previous change of hand-layout will help them pack more logic onto their chips as well as these Hard-IP blocks can be packed in smaller spaces.
The other advantage of this method is that development and validation times can be reduced as well and all the added costs of engineering tools that go along with it. It is even conceivable that in the future, customers would be able to place orders "on-line" and have their designs automatically assembled and tested without any human effort at all. This is possible by the use of FPGA technology that has been in use for almost 30 years. FPGA stands for "Field Programmable Gate Array" which is an array of logic cells that can be re-programmed at any time to be whatever you want it to be. Coupling this logic with the "Hard-IP blocks" would give customers a flexible platform from which they could design their own circuits and chips and reduce the need for large R&D companies to build costly custom chips. This purpose may explain Intel's latest purchase of Altera FPGA for 50 billion dollars.
Chip Stacking
Some companies will look at going 3D in their chip designs by "stacking" chips on top of each other. Memory chips are a good use of this as typically only 1 chip is being accessed at the same time and so some area could be reduced. Also, memories are not normally big generators of heat and so stacking should not be an issue with regard to thermal issues. But as far as processors (general purpose and special purpose) that cannot be said. These typically generate gobs of heat and stacking makes it difficult to remove this heat in an efficient manner.
Another issue is how to evenly distribute the power and ground connections in such a way that chips further away from the board (where the power is generated) do not incur unmanageable amounts of induction and noise that would cause the chip to malfunction. When chips are connected to a board they have many connections that are dedicated for this purpose spread around the bottom of the chip and directly connected to the board. Chips stacked on top of other chips will not have this luxury and will have limited amounts of connections to use.
But even if both of these issues could be solved, stacking doesn't really solve the main cost issue at all that Moore's Law implies. Chip stacking simply provides a denser packaging of the chips and cannot achieve Moore's Law results. Let's say we have a memory chip that has 8G bytes and costs $5 to produce and I sell it for $10. Under Moore's Law in 2 years I will sell you 16G bytes in the same package for $10 with the same $5 profit. But with chip-stacking I need to sell you 2 chips (8G each) at $10, but now my profit is $0. I would have to find ways to produce the chip cheaper (salaries, equipment, etc) to make the chip for $4 so I can eek out a $2 profit. But what about the next year when I need to stack 4 chips in the same package and the cost to me become $16? Can I reduce the cost of the chip to $2 each? You see where this is going.
Multi-bit computing
For almost all of the history of computing 1-bit could only represent 2 values: 0 or 1. Computer chips would traditionally use a high voltage of greater than 1 volt to represent a "1" (in the early days this value was 5 volts) and a voltage of 0 volts to represent a "0" (although there are some exceptions to this case). It has been shown in the past that some technologies, such as memories, could use 4-value logic instead of binary logic and have a signal be 4 values (0,1,2,3). Intel showed this even back in the 1990's with a Flash Memory chip capable of storing 2 bits inside of a single memory cell. It does this by storing different amounts of voltage to represent the different values (0=0v, 1=1.0v, 2=3.0v, 3=4.0v) and effectively packed 2 bits in the same space it previously could only store 1 bit of information. This works well for memory cells but not so much for logic as logic gates cannot measure the voltage to make decisions. But even this capability has its limits as you would need to subdivide a range of voltages into smaller and smaller values to store more and more bits of information. For example, to store 3-bits would require 8 voltage levels (0=0v, 1=0.5v, 2=1.0v, 3=1.5v, 4=2.0v, 5=2.5v, 6=3.0v 7=3.5v) and so now the margin of error drops to 0.5 volts rather than 1 volt and so errors would be more likely to occur. 4-bits would require 16 voltages levels and drop the margin for error to 0.25 volts if you allow your highest voltage to go up to 4 volts. This however is simply not the case today as much logic today runs under 2 volts so that it does not consume too much power.
Processing Re-partitioning
Next there will be a possible change in HOW we compute. Our current computer model is over 70 years old and this model separates processing, memory and IO. In the future, these may be re-partitioned to more efficiently put them together to reduce the overhead of communicating between them. Today much of our chips logic is dedicated explicitly to moving data from one side of the chip to another quickly. It is conceivable that by combining memory, IO and processing into a small "neuro-processor" we could lessen the communication logic and compact the functions more efficiently. Of course this would require a major rewriting of our OS and Software layers but it could be done.
Software Improvements
Eventually all the hardware improvements will come to a grinding halt and all future improvements will be dependent on the software. More efficient languages will need to be developed that will improve performance and memory usage as today's languages (like C++) are very inefficient in both of these aspects as their purpose is to improve development time at the cost of both performance and memory. Programs will need to be optimized (either by hand or by other tools) to reduce undesired waste in processing. (Who knows! Assembly language may even come back into fashion once again!).
But all of these solutions are just futile attempt to put off the inevitable. Like death, in the end, we will reach a limit in what we can achieve in processor computing.
The question is, however, WHEN WILL THAT HAPPEN?
My Prediction
To me, I think we have only about 1-2 more levels of Moore's Law in terms of transistor reduction. Companies will invest in hand-layout of large parts of their designs to strain out another 10-20% of their die area and after that we will see about 2 years of advancement from chip-stacking and other compaction techniques. Adding it altogether I would say we have only about 10 years at most before we see computer technology advancement come to a halt. After that companies will continue to reduce their costs of production through Hard-IP but the perceivable technological advancements to the end-user will be minimal while their costs will slowly come down (like how early calculators costs $200 but now can be bought for less than $10. They don't do anything new, but they sure are cheap!).
as the measuring stick of what will happen in the next 50 years, especially when it comes to computers and the digital age. When we look back at the 1950's and the ENIAC computer which was built using vacuum tubes and took up a whole room the size of a medium house and compare that with the processing power we have in our pockets with our smart phones we just can't believe what is yet to come. We take that little piece of data and try to predict what will be the processing power of the future be like in our phones or on our wrists or even in our brains in the NEXT 50 years. Will computers have the processing power of our brains? Will they become self-aware? 
Most of this has been built on a prediction by Gordon Moore who in the 1960's predicted that the number of transistors on a chip would double every 2 years thus doubling our computation power every 2 years as well. This has been called: Moore's Law. For much of the later half of the 20th century this "law" (which is more a prediction than a law) was very accurate and seemingly unstoppable as every 2 years companies like Intel punched out chips twice as many transistors on them. This prediction also provided companies like Intel to plan way into the future and develop highly complex chips long before there were chips large enough to contain them.Sadly however, just recently this "law" was broken. For the first time in over 50 years, the law "stumbled" and took Intel 3 years to reach its next doubling instead of 2. But even if it was a simple stumble the question remains. Can we double the number of transistors to infinity?
The answer to that question is of course: "No of course not!". In order to double the number of transistors on the same size die (or chip) would require you to make the transistors 1/2 their area. This shrinkage must reduce the width and length by a factor of .7071 (or square root of 2 divided by 2) in order to do this. Chip manufactures have done this by reducing their process size from 80 nano-meter(nm) to 56nm to 40nm to 28nm to 20nm to 14nm and so on.
But how big is 1 nano-meter? To give you some scale, the radius of an average Silicon atom (which is what makes up most of the computer chip) is 0.541 nano-meters wide. This means that 1 nano-meter is only about 2 Silicon atoms wide. This means that a chip using a 14nm process means its transistors are approximately 14/0.541 = 25 atoms wide on average. A 10nm process would be only 18 atoms wide. Of course this would mean that the absolute smallest you could go is 0.541 nm (1 atom) which is only 6 "Moore's-Law-Doublings" (Si atom widths: 13, 9, 6 ,4 ,2, 1) left to go, if you could go that far, but in all practicality you cannot.
Most physicists believe that 5nm is about as far as you can go for the following reasons
Quantum Tunneling
Around 5nm you begin to run into some quantum-physics issues where electrons can pass through barriers without going through them. This is called quantum-tunneling and would make the transistors "leak" electrons from one side of the transistor to the other. Since the transistors only purpose is to act as a tiny electrical switch, a switch that allows electrons to flow through even in the "off" position is not a good switch anymore.
Silicon Migration
Electrons flowing through silicon and act as tiny bullets or cannonballs as they occasionally hit the atoms nucleus (they do not actually collide, but their electric fields interact very strongly and bounce off of each other) and physically move the atoms around over time. When transistors are large in size, a little atomic movement is acceptable and not even noticeable. But with very small transistors that are only a few atoms wide they can be disastrous and make the transistor stop working. This means that chips will not be able to last as long as they once were. For some applications this is not an issue, but for areas like automobiles and safety it will be a problem.
Defect Effect.
When chips are made small electrical connections are laid out using a process called photo-lithography. A chip is not made with just a single photo-lithography step, but instead is made by repeating the processes 100's of times over to draw different parts of the design ranging from the transistors to the intricate levels of metal connections to wire it all together. The smaller the geometries of the devices being drawn the more difficult it become to make sure things are adequately lined up so they connect where they should connect and don't connect where they should not connect. Each process step must line up with all the process steps before it. If there are 100 steps then likelihood that a chip makes it through correctly is P to the 100th power where P is the accuracy of lining up with the silicon. If you want an 90% yield you would need P = 0.9 ^ (0.01) = 99.894% As the geometries decrease this target becomes more and more difficult to hit as the tolerances for aligning become increasingly tighter. These alignment issues stem from 2 main issues: thermal vibration and physical vibration.
Thermal vibration is caused by the heat of the chip. The warmer the material the more the atoms are vibrating (heat is simply the measurement of atomic vibration). This vibration is not noticeable to the naked eye, but at the microscopic level it can look like a massive earthquake. Since all matter naturally vibrates from thermal interactions the tolerances become such that super-cooling will be necessary to limit these vibrations during the manufacturing process.
Physical vibrations stem from factory induced causes such as: noise, floor vibrations, and earth vibrations (small tremors). Even the smallest sound can sometimes be enough to affect the production. So much so, that most many workers in semiconductor fabs use sign-language to communicate rather than speaking to each other. To reduce this activity further may require fabrication processes to either be done in orbit above the earth or use superconducting magnets to allow the fab to hover above the earth. Both of these technologies would be prohibitively expensive to do.
Of course there have been some laboratory experiments showing transistors as small as 3nm using other substances like Graphene which is a carbon nanotube structure. But these "experiments" only work on single transistors with no real way to produce them in the billions and assemble them in such a way that they can be considered production worthy.
The Economic Factor
This last fact, is really what brings to light the most limiting factor of Moore's Law. It's not just about "can we do it" , but instead "can we do it cost efficiently". Lots of smart people working in academia today are trying to solve the problem. But most of them are only looking at the physics of the problem and not so much the economics of the problem. Sure you can show a single transistor under a microscope functioning at 3nm in size. Now repeat that processes 10 billion times and do it for less than $50. This is where the rubber meets the road and most academic papers skid off into the ditch.
What does this mean for the future of computing?
It means things are going to change in a hurry.
Removing the "fat"
Designs will have to go on a diet. Many designs have built in "fat" (unused logic) for a variety of purposes.
- Over-sized buffers and memories which could be reduced
- Redundant logic
- Extra modes of operation that very few customers use
- Test-mode or Debug logic which might be unnecessary if you are not changing the design much anymore
Hand Layout
Much of our designs today are laid out (where transistors are put and how signals are routed to different logic on the chip) by computer programs. These programs are good, but many times they get lost "seeing the forest through all the trees" and waste a lot of space on chips. In many cases, humans can still do better jobs on some of this logic using creative thinking and knowing more about what is important and what is not so important. In the 1980's and 1990's much of our processor chips were laid out this way and in the future we may return back to it again.
Re-use, Re-use, Re-use
Many companies today are already moving toward the re-use model of technology. They are developing Intellectual Property Blocks (also known as "Hard-IP blocks") that can be assembled quickly and efficiently by engineers to reduce their R&D costs to their absolute minimum. This coupled with the previous change of hand-layout will help them pack more logic onto their chips as well as these Hard-IP blocks can be packed in smaller spaces.
The other advantage of this method is that development and validation times can be reduced as well and all the added costs of engineering tools that go along with it. It is even conceivable that in the future, customers would be able to place orders "on-line" and have their designs automatically assembled and tested without any human effort at all. This is possible by the use of FPGA technology that has been in use for almost 30 years. FPGA stands for "Field Programmable Gate Array" which is an array of logic cells that can be re-programmed at any time to be whatever you want it to be. Coupling this logic with the "Hard-IP blocks" would give customers a flexible platform from which they could design their own circuits and chips and reduce the need for large R&D companies to build costly custom chips. This purpose may explain Intel's latest purchase of Altera FPGA for 50 billion dollars.
Chip Stacking
Some companies will look at going 3D in their chip designs by "stacking" chips on top of each other. Memory chips are a good use of this as typically only 1 chip is being accessed at the same time and so some area could be reduced. Also, memories are not normally big generators of heat and so stacking should not be an issue with regard to thermal issues. But as far as processors (general purpose and special purpose) that cannot be said. These typically generate gobs of heat and stacking makes it difficult to remove this heat in an efficient manner.
But even if both of these issues could be solved, stacking doesn't really solve the main cost issue at all that Moore's Law implies. Chip stacking simply provides a denser packaging of the chips and cannot achieve Moore's Law results. Let's say we have a memory chip that has 8G bytes and costs $5 to produce and I sell it for $10. Under Moore's Law in 2 years I will sell you 16G bytes in the same package for $10 with the same $5 profit. But with chip-stacking I need to sell you 2 chips (8G each) at $10, but now my profit is $0. I would have to find ways to produce the chip cheaper (salaries, equipment, etc) to make the chip for $4 so I can eek out a $2 profit. But what about the next year when I need to stack 4 chips in the same package and the cost to me become $16? Can I reduce the cost of the chip to $2 each? You see where this is going.
Multi-bit computing
For almost all of the history of computing 1-bit could only represent 2 values: 0 or 1. Computer chips would traditionally use a high voltage of greater than 1 volt to represent a "1" (in the early days this value was 5 volts) and a voltage of 0 volts to represent a "0" (although there are some exceptions to this case). It has been shown in the past that some technologies, such as memories, could use 4-value logic instead of binary logic and have a signal be 4 values (0,1,2,3). Intel showed this even back in the 1990's with a Flash Memory chip capable of storing 2 bits inside of a single memory cell. It does this by storing different amounts of voltage to represent the different values (0=0v, 1=1.0v, 2=3.0v, 3=4.0v) and effectively packed 2 bits in the same space it previously could only store 1 bit of information. This works well for memory cells but not so much for logic as logic gates cannot measure the voltage to make decisions. But even this capability has its limits as you would need to subdivide a range of voltages into smaller and smaller values to store more and more bits of information. For example, to store 3-bits would require 8 voltage levels (0=0v, 1=0.5v, 2=1.0v, 3=1.5v, 4=2.0v, 5=2.5v, 6=3.0v 7=3.5v) and so now the margin of error drops to 0.5 volts rather than 1 volt and so errors would be more likely to occur. 4-bits would require 16 voltages levels and drop the margin for error to 0.25 volts if you allow your highest voltage to go up to 4 volts. This however is simply not the case today as much logic today runs under 2 volts so that it does not consume too much power.
Processing Re-partitioning
Next there will be a possible change in HOW we compute. Our current computer model is over 70 years old and this model separates processing, memory and IO. In the future, these may be re-partitioned to more efficiently put them together to reduce the overhead of communicating between them. Today much of our chips logic is dedicated explicitly to moving data from one side of the chip to another quickly. It is conceivable that by combining memory, IO and processing into a small "neuro-processor" we could lessen the communication logic and compact the functions more efficiently. Of course this would require a major rewriting of our OS and Software layers but it could be done.
Software Improvements
Eventually all the hardware improvements will come to a grinding halt and all future improvements will be dependent on the software. More efficient languages will need to be developed that will improve performance and memory usage as today's languages (like C++) are very inefficient in both of these aspects as their purpose is to improve development time at the cost of both performance and memory. Programs will need to be optimized (either by hand or by other tools) to reduce undesired waste in processing. (Who knows! Assembly language may even come back into fashion once again!).
But all of these solutions are just futile attempt to put off the inevitable. Like death, in the end, we will reach a limit in what we can achieve in processor computing.
The question is, however, WHEN WILL THAT HAPPEN?
My Prediction
To me, I think we have only about 1-2 more levels of Moore's Law in terms of transistor reduction. Companies will invest in hand-layout of large parts of their designs to strain out another 10-20% of their die area and after that we will see about 2 years of advancement from chip-stacking and other compaction techniques. Adding it altogether I would say we have only about 10 years at most before we see computer technology advancement come to a halt. After that companies will continue to reduce their costs of production through Hard-IP but the perceivable technological advancements to the end-user will be minimal while their costs will slowly come down (like how early calculators costs $200 but now can be bought for less than $10. They don't do anything new, but they sure are cheap!).
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