Ten Year Anniversary of Core 2 Duo and Conroe: Moore’s Law is Dead, Long Live Moore’s Law
by Ian Cutress on July 27, 2016 10:30 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Core 2 Duo
- Conroe
- ITRS
- Nostalgia
- Time To Upgrade
Looking To The Future: NAND Flash Scales Up to 64 TB SSDs in 2030
Over the past few years, the NAND Flash industry has gone through two major shifts in technology: the movement from 1 to 2 to 3 bits per cell, which directly increases bit density and capacity, and also moving from planar flash to variants of 3D stacking. Stacking can refer to individual NAND dies, as well as stacking those dies into a single package: both of these features are being extensively investigated to increase density also. There are two main drivers for this: reduction in cost, and capacity. However, despite this, the predictions in the ITRS report for NAND flash are primarily looking at improvements to numbers of layers rather than lithography changes or moving to more bits per cell.
As we can see, TLC (according to the report) is here to stay. QLC, or whatever you want to call it, is not mentioned. The two changes are the number of memory layers, moving from 32 today to 128 around 2022 and then 256/512 by 2030, and the number of word-lines in one 3D NAND string. This gives a product density projection of 256 Gbit packages today to 1 Tbit packages in 2022 and 4 Tbit packages in 2030.
If we apply this to consumer drives available today, we can extrapolate potential SSD sizes for the future. The current Samsung 850 EVO 4 TB uses Samsung’s 48-layer third generation V-NAND to provide 256 Gbit TLC parts. Alongside the 4 TB of memory, the controller requires 4 GB of DRAM, which is another concern to remember. So despite the report stating 256 Gbit in 32-layer, we have 256 Gbit in 48-layer, which is a difference primarily in die-size predictions for the report. Still, if we go off of the product density we should see 12 TB SSDs by 2020, 16 TB in 2022, 48 TB in 2028 and 64 TB drives in 2030. It’s worth noting that the ITRS report doesn’t mention power consumption in this table, nor controller developments which may be a substantial source of performance and/or capacity implementations.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
158 Comments
View All Comments
Icehawk - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
I replaced my C2D a couple of years ago only because it needed yet another mobo and PSU and I do like shiny things, I'd bet if it was still around I could pop in my old 660GTX and run most games just fine at 1080. At work there are some C2Ds still kicking around... and a P4 w XP! Of course a lot of larger businesses have legacy gear & apps but it made me chuckle when I saw the P4.With the plateau in needed performance on the average desktop there just isn't much reason to upgrade these days other than video card if you are a gamer. Same thing with phones and tablets - why aren't iPads selling? Everyone got one and doesn't see a need to upgrade! My wife has an original iPad and it works just fine for what she uses it for so why spend $600 on a new one?
zepi - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
You are not mentioning FPGA's and non-volatile memory revolution which could very well be coming soon (not just flash, but x-point and other similar stuff).Personally I see FPGAs as a clear use for all the transistors we might want to give them.
Program stuff, let it run through a compiler-profiler and let it's adaptive cloud trained AI create an optimal "core" for your most performance intensive code. This recipe is then baked together with the executable, which will get programmed near-realtime to the FPGA portion of the SOC you are using. Only to be reprogrammed when you "alt-tab" to another program.
Obviously we'll still need massively parallel "GPU" portion in chip, ASIC-blocks for H265 encode / decode with 8K 120Hz HDR support, encryption / decryption + other similar ASIC usages and 2-6 "XYZlake" CPU's. Rest of the chip will be FPGA with ever more intelligent libraries + compilers + profilers used to determine at software compile time the optimal recipe for the FPGA programming.
Not to mention the paradigm chances that non-volatile fast memory (x-point and future competitors) could bring.
wumpus - Thursday, August 4, 2016 - link
FPGAs are old hat. Granted, it might be nice if they could replace maybe half of their 6T SRAM waste (probably routing definitions, although they might get away with 4T), but certainly the look-up needs to be 6T SRAM. I'd claim that the non-volitile revolution happened in FPGAs (mainly off chip) at least 10 years ago.But at least they can take advantage of the new processes. So don't count them out.
lakerssuperman - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
I'm reading this from my old Sony laptop with a Core 2 Duo and Nvidia GPU in it. With an SSD added in, the basic task performance is virtually indistinguishable from my other computers with much newer and more powerful CPU's. Granted it can get loud when under load, but the Core 2 era was still a ways away from the new mobile focused Intel we have now.I guess my basic point is that I got this laptop in 2009 and for regular browsing tasks etc, it is still more than adequate which is a testament to both the quality and longevity of the Core 2 family, but where we are with CPU power in general. Good stuff.
jeffry - Monday, August 1, 2016 - link
I agree. Got me a Sony SZ1m in 2007 (i think?), flip switched the core duo yonah with a core2duo T7200 merom. Because its 64 bit and now i can run 64 bit os and 64 bit software on it.boozed - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Funny to think that despite four process shrinks, there's been minimal power and clock improvement since then.UtilityMax - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
To some of you it may sound like a surprise, but a Core2Duo desktop can still be fairly usable as a media consumption device running Windows 10. I am friends with a couple who are financially struggling graduate students. The other way, they brought an ancient Gateway PC with LCD from work, and they were wondering if they could rebuild it into a PC for their kid. The specs were 2GB of memory and Pentium E2180 CPU. I found inside of a box of ancient computer parts which I never throw away an old Radeon graphics card and a 802.11n USB adapter. I told them to buy a Core2Duo E4500 processor online because it cost just E4500. After installing Windows 10, the PC runs fairly smoothly. Good enough for web browsing and video streaming. I could even load some older games like Quake 3 and UrbanTerror 4.2 and play them with no glitch.UtilityMax - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
I mean, the E4500 cost just 5 bucks..DonMiguel85 - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Still using a Core 2 Quad 9550. It bottlenecks most modern games with my GTX 960, but can still run DOOM at 60FPS.metayoshi - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
Wow. Actually, just last holiday season, I replaced my parents' old P4 system (with 512 MB RAM! and 250 GB SATA Maxtor HDD!) with my old Core i7-860 since I upgraded to a system with a Core i7-4790K that I got on a black friday sale. The old 860 could definitely still run well for everyday tasks and even gaming, so it was more than good enough for my parents, but the video processing capabilities of the more recent chips are a lot better, which is the main reason I updated. Also, the single threaded performance was amazing for the 4790K, and the Dolphin emulator did not run so well on my 860, so there was that.Speaking of Core 2, though, I owned an ASUS UL30Vt with the Core 2 Duo SU7300 CPU and an Nvidia GeForce G 210M. While the weak GPU was not so great for high end gaming, the overall laptop was amazing. It was more than powerful enough for everyday tasks, and had amazing battery life. It was pretty much what every ultrabook today desires to be: sleek, slim, but powerful enough with great battery life. That laptop to me was the highlight of the Core 2 era. I was kind of sad to let it go when I upgraded to a more powerful laptop with an Ivy Bridge CPU and 640M LE GPU. I don't think any laptop I owned gave me as much satisfaction as that old Asus. Good times.