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iniewski
I guess predictions are used as a vehicle to wonder about the future, they don't ...
F-Steinway
Broadcom's Samueli makes 15-year predictions
Rick Merritt
9/6/2012 8:25 PM EDT
SAN JOSE, Calif. – By 2027, mobile devices will sport all-digital radios and Gbit/second cellular modems powered by 16-core apps processors running at 5 GHz.
That’s just one of several predictions Broadcom Corp. discussed Thursday (Sept. 6) at a symposium honoring its co-founder and chief technologist Henry Samueli who won the 2012 Marconi Society Prize for his work in chip designs that led to the cable modem.
“Most of the predictions are just linear extrapolations, and you hope for the best, but the disruptive innovations are the ones that really change the industry,” said Samueli in a phone interview after the symposium. “I tried to be as realistic as I could and not too science fiction-y,” he said.
Among Broadcom's other predictions: Radios will hit terahertz frequencies with full digital sampling up to 6 GHz. Home gateways will hit 100 Gbit/s data rates handling multiple 8k x 4k video streams. Ethernet switches will enable mainstream 400 Gbit's rates and Tbit/s peaks.
“The biggest issue we all worry about is the end of Moore’s Law,” Samueli said. “I think we have a reasonable runway to get below 10 nm and that will carry us another 10-20 years, then someone along the line will need to invent something new and engineers just do that,” he said.
In the meantime, Samueli is not sweating the current capacity crunch at today’s bleeding edge 28 nm process. “We probably won’t ramp [28 nm products] until the end of next year, and TSMC and others claim they will have capacity issues sorted out by the end of the year,” he said.
Samueli spends most of his time these days fostering a culture of collaborative engineering at the company that now employs more than 11,000 people. At the technical level that involves “creating common [SoC] methodologies and design flows to make it easy for people to share technology across the company,” he said.
“We have proprietary databases where all our IP is checked in and logged, standards are adhered to and all the documentation needed to use it is available along with people available to answer questions,” he said. “We view that as a proprietary advantage,” he added.
Henry Samueli explored the 2027 horizon at a Broadcom symposium.
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krh
9/7/2012 1:01 AM EDT
I have always said (maybe I read it somewhere)...leave something for your kids to do.
Dr. Samueli, don't know if my kids are tending to be EEs, but if they do...hope they take your vision as a challenge.
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Turkman
9/7/2012 9:09 AM EDT
Am I the only one to have read Samueli's quotes in Christopher Walken's voice?
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dylan.mcgrath
9/7/2012 1:05 PM EDT
@Turkman- No, for some reason I did that, too.
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WaveMan
9/10/2012 1:40 PM EDT
Good call...check out Walken on SNL and his skit "more cowbell"
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iniewski
9/7/2012 1:07 PM EDT
"Most of the predictions are just linear extrapolations" I agree with his assesstment. But his own predictions of things being faster and smaller seem to belong to the same category...Kris
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rick.merritt
9/7/2012 7:04 PM EDT
I didn't put this in but he said the really hard part is predicting the applications space.
What will people do with smartphones that have 16 core apps processors running at 5 GHz, a Gbit/s cellular link and all digital radios?
Methinks we need something more than touch screens and apps!
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Battar
9/10/2012 11:10 AM EDT
Rick, mobile computing devices can get smarter, but people won't. In the future, Angry Birds will have better graphics, more accurate ballistic projections, and virtual surround sound, but the app is still just a game
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iniewski
9/10/2012 11:50 AM EDT
I agree @Battar, better Angry Birds is not a compelling future!
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sam7san
9/10/2012 1:27 PM EDT
One immediate application will be virtual image as you use your smartphone or a similar system. More will come in this space...stay tuned.
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iniewski
9/7/2012 7:07 PM EDT
I agree Rick, we need something that is revolutionary different...at least give Google glasses, mind reading systems with a smart hat picking up your brainwaves, or personal lavitation devices to move around ;-)
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PV-Geek
9/7/2012 10:05 PM EDT
I think that history shows that we will be surprised by what actually happens. Project all you want, you can't predict innovation. I still marvel at my iphone every day.
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pinhead
9/10/2012 1:05 PM EDT
I agree. I think "it" will be something that the majority of us will not have seen coming. Coffee mugs or shoes or bicycles with embedded processors, or something that sounds just as preposterous as a smart phone sounded 10 years ago.
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seaEE
9/7/2012 10:27 PM EDT
What new discoveries in physics and chemistry will ultimately find themselves in the engineer's toolbox? What will differentiate between incremental and revolutionary?
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agk
9/10/2012 9:07 AM EDT
As the data speed increases communications become more effective and so good under standing between people. So we see bright future.I also just think of 32kbit modems used 15 years back.
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docdivakar
9/10/2012 2:41 PM EDT
"Home gateways will hit 100 Gbit/s data rates..." amuses me, if one were to take the extrapolation from the 10Gbps example. The standard was ratified 10 years ago and only now we see servers are shipping in volume (though the switches were available 4 years ago but suffered the wrath of excessive power consumption). Most home users have computers with Gigabit connectivity but data ratesare a couple of Mbit/s or worse. Assuming terabit switching at the core by 2020 in similar volumes at 10Gig switches are today, it would be a stretch to see 100Gig at home gateways, even with exponential scaling in speeds... just my cynical opinion!
MP Divakar
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iniewski
9/10/2012 4:19 PM EDT
and even if 100 Gb/s home gateway happens, what are we going to do with that bandwidth? watch 4 HD movies simultanously?!
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Turkman
9/10/2012 5:18 PM EDT
Download a movie instantly and take it with you to view on your mobile device.
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docdivakar
9/11/2012 6:15 PM EDT
I am compelled to recall an album "Amused to Death" by one of my favourite artists, Roger Waters... we will all be amusing ourselves with 100Gig home gateways, if it ever materializes in the remaining years of my life!
MP Divakar
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F-Steinway
9/12/2012 9:53 AM EDT
What is the use of such predictions, except for journalists?
Why is there always someone predicting what will happen in 10 or 20 years? Can anyone tell what will happen in 1 year, or 1 day?
The most favorable prediction is about how much money will be earned. The opposite is interesting too: how much money was not earned because some copied something, because of counterfeiting.
It never is about something social e.g. how many people get a job or families earning more money.
If what the employees earn would be on the positive side of the balance sheet, this would look different and change slowly economics, even improve for people I think.
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iniewski
9/12/2012 10:03 AM EDT
I guess predictions are used as a vehicle to wonder about the future, they don't have any intrinsic value...predicting what would happen in 1-day is not difficult, most of the time nothing would do...the same with weather forecast, the safest one for tomorrow is that the weather will be the same, this is the most accurate prediction...Kris
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