[rswail]

Aren't we reaching the point where there is no "solution" in terms of density and physical dimensions?

It's like the speed of light being a constant, or the Planck length being the smallest that can be subject to standard physics.

Quantum computing, which is a complete change in the actual physical model of computing, appears to be the only alternative.

[tancop]

all production ics have a flat layout with 3d transistors. the physical limit is how close can the features on one wafer get before theres too much tunneling.

there is a clear way forward with wafer stacking instead of shrinking layouts but so far we only have amd v-cache style asymmetric designs with memory stacked on top of compute. for a fully connected stack that acts like a single chip you need insane precision to align the wafers and a way to remove heat from the middle so the chips dont fry themselves.

if someone finds a way to stack cpu cores without thermal issues that will be a real revolution. huawei might be close with their logic folding but nobody knows if it really works and what the heat problems are like.