Silicon: After the chip, another revolution? | Hacker News Reader

Silicon: After the chip, another revolution?

bbc.co.uk

24 pointsNux11 comments

>desktop computers haven't got much better in the last 10 years or so

I'm sorry, that's just utterly ludicrous. Even if we're just talking about CPUs, the fastest desktop Intel chip in 2004 was the Pentium 4!

That's definitely nowhere near the truth.

From graphics cards, to ram, to ssd's, to processors, desktops have gotten dramatically better, and cheaper by probably 50% for the same model range.

A $300 i7 from Intel is ~25 times faster than a comparable Pentium 4 processor from 2004 (and that's probably being generous to 2004 by only comparing the passmark straight up).

$200 high quality SSD's alone invalidate the notion that desktops haven't improved.

There should be an "is solar cheap yet" website. That would be a lot more useful and interesting than "is Ruby fast yet" or other sites of that ilk. Not that I don't get a chuckle out of the other sites, mind, but I'd love to have someone send me a text message when it makes financial sense to put solar panels up.

Jack St Clair Kilby came up with the idea of the integrated circuit during the summer of 1958. According to Texas Instruments, most of his colleagues had left for the traditional two-week holiday period, but Kilby "as a new employee with no vacation, stayed to man the shop" Left to his own devices at work, Kilby decided to try and crack the "tyranny-of-numbers" issue facing the industry

I wonder how many more breakthroughs like this we would see if companies had a policy like Google's '20% time' but condensed into single stretches.

Another factor in "grid parity" - variable, tiered, pricing by the utility company. If you have a large family, you are likely to hit the upper "tiers" (at least for the PG&E utility company) where electricity is 30 or 40 cents, rather than 11 or 12 cents, per kWH.

Providing 1/2 or 1/3 of your electricity via solar panels starts to make a lot of sense in that case.

Even at 40 cents a kilowatt/hour, how can $1000/kilowatt ($1/W) solar panel compete?

Is the $1/W price the one time purchase price or the marginal cost of output over its lifespan?

Most of my electricity bill is transmission fees and depreciated liabilities, that alone has me watching solar very closely.

Solar is priced at the peak output. So 1w solar produces ~8h * 365d * 15 = ~43.8kwh over 15 years.

Note, solar lasts longer that than 15 years, but has reduced output as it ages. Also, a major advantage over traditional investments is your saving money which is untaxed and it keeps up with inflation. Generally making it a much better investment than most bonds.

A 15 year home loan at 6% is a net win even on a ~5$/w solar system vs 10c/kwh electricity in most of the US.

PS: Though for real savings your better going for solar hot water / home heating that generally pays for it's self in under 3 years.

Ah that clarifies it thx!

Wow, the solar panel story was fun. Been to Willits a few times to ride the skunk train (which is fun) but the solar story is neat. More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Goods#History_of_Real_Good...

> It was a colleague of Noyce's, Robert Moore, who first realised how quickly the power of computers would multiply. A few years after that first silicon chip was created, he predicted that the number of transistors on a chip would double roughly every two years.

Gordon.

Bennett

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