Microarchitecture performance innovation continues (the M1, Zen3, and Alder Lake cores are all significant improvements over their predecessors), and transistor performance and density continues to increase. We're on the verge of new transistor architecture (FinFET -> GAA) and shrinks and other advancements continue.
Single chip processors have not reached their limits in terms of . For some applications, one piece of silicon is not enough, and that has been true for ever. Early cores were built with multiple chips, later ones had separate cache or FPU add ons, we had (and still have) SMP multi-processors that wire up many chips together, we have discrete GPUs.
So in any given year, with any given silicon technology and logic design, we have virtually always reached the limit of single chip processors, and gone beyond them with multiple chips. And at the same time, the limits of single chip processors have continued to expand year after year.
Both of these things remain true. Relative performance improvements have slowed significantly from where they were 20-30 years ago, but things are still ticking along.
I read articles like this as saying "reached their limits [as we currently understand them]." Sometimes we learn we were mistaken and more is possible but it's not reliable and, crucially, when it happens it happens in unexpected ways. The process of talking about when (and why) techniques have hit their useful limits is often key to unearthing the next step.
Agreed. I would be wary of reaching fundamental limits set by physics although I don't think we're there yet.
"It would appear that we have reached the limits of what is possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in five years."
We only have to solve one limitation per year to keep making progress year over year, and as it is, the semiconductor industry still seems to be solving large numbers of significant issues yearly. So while we don't necessarily get smooth, predictable improvement, a safe bet is that there will be continue to be useful new developments 10-20 years out, even if they don't translate to the same kinds of gains as in years past.
that speech is about 80 years old nowadays. There was plenty of room at that time.
Of course, it also speculated that we would move into quantum computers at some point, what is still a possibility, but now we know that quantum computers won't solve every issue.
Not that I doubt it, but just I've also been impressed with the ingenuity that folks come up with in this space.