The semiconductors that act as the brains for everything from our washing machines to our mobile phones are hitting a variety of plateaus — plateaus that could affect their ability to perform faster, longer and in more and more places. But electronics makers might find some short-term answers to these problems by looking at the supercomputer industry and chip researchers could solve the long-term issues by studying quantum physics.
While it seems that chip industry has changed a lot in the last five years or so, that’s nothing compared to what will have to happen going forward. In the last five years the advent of iPhone — which brought real computing on a small, mobile form factor — has upended Intel’s dominance in the PC market. Just last week mobile chip maker Qualcomm surpassed Intel in market cap.
via GigaOM
November 12, 2012
