Comment by CuriousRose
2 months ago
If humans forgot how to make new CPUs, it might finally be the incentive we need to make more efficient software. No more relying on faster chips to bail out lazy coding and make apps run lean. Picture programmers sweating over every byte like it's 1980 again.
Probably not. Devices would run out within a generation.
It ain't ever going to happen because people can write these things called books. And computer organization and architecture books already exist and there are many 10k's copies of them. What should be captured in modern computer organization books is applied science aspects of the history until now and the tricks that made Apple's ARM series so excellent. The other thing is TSMC needs to document fab process engineering. Without the capture of niche, essential knowledge they become strategic single points of failure. Leadership and logic dictate not allowing this kind of vulnerability to fester too deeply or too long.
The essential tacit knowledge can't be captured in books. It has to be learned by experience, participating in (and/or developing) a functioning organization that's creating the technology.
Programmers haven't been able to rely on CPUs getting faster for the last decade. Speeds used to double every 1.5 years or so. Now they increase 50% per core and double the number of cores... every 10 years. GPU performance has increased at a faster pace, but ultimately also stagnated, except for the addition of tensor cores.
That's already happening
Ah the good old days again, what a beautiful vision. Decadence and lazyness begone! Good luck running your bloated CI pipelines and test suits on megahertz hardware! /s