From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: erik quanstrom Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:48:05 -0400 To: 9fans@9fans.net Message-ID: <409f0bdd641ba37abf049312406f2d2a@brasstown.quanstro.net> In-Reply-To: <<20091019182352.GA1688@polynum.com>> References: <<20091019182352.GA1688@polynum.com>> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [9fans] Barrelfish Topicbox-Message-UUID: 8bb491fa-ead5-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 totally ot. sorry. > > 1. p. 8. "the most promising devices are quantum effect > > devices." (none are currently in use in processors.) > > Since quantics means unpredictable, I think that we see more and more > quantum effects in hardware and software. So, I beg to disagree ;) you may not fully appreciate what is meant by quantum effect. example devices are: resonant- tunneling transistors, quantum wires and dots. they are definately not unpredictable. they are probabilistic and one can build very useful devices with them. in my misguided youth i worked on building an 808nm laser out of quaternary semis and such quantum structures. wierd stuff. there is no fundamental reason one couldn't build a computer with rt transistors. here's a rt xor structure http://www.hindawi.com/journals/vlsi/2009/803974.html this stuff is insanely hard, and probablly the mythical "twenty-years out"; it's just not Si-friendly. and nobody wants (can afford) to deal with GaAs let alone the funky quateraries. but if we make any real break throughs in computing, it'll likely be based on quantum effect. - erik