Robert Dennard, Inventor of DRAM, Dies At 91 20
necro81 writes: Robert Dennard was working at IBM in the 1960s when he invented a way to store one bit using a single transistor and capacitor. The technology became dynamic random access memory (DRAM), which when implemented using the emerging technology of silicon integrated circuits, helped catapult computing by leaps and bounds. The first commercial DRAM chips in the late 1960s held just 1024 bits; today's DDR5 modules hold hundreds of billions.
Dr. Robert H. Dennard passed away last month at age 91. (alternate link)
In the 1970s he helped guide technology roadmaps for the ever-shrinking feature size of lithography, enabling the early years of Moore's Law. He wrote a seminal paper in 1974 relating feature size and power consumption that is now referred to as Dennard Scaling. His technological contributions earned him numerous awards, and accolades from the National Academy of Engineering, IEEE, and the National Inventor's Hall of Fame.
Dr. Robert H. Dennard passed away last month at age 91. (alternate link)
In the 1970s he helped guide technology roadmaps for the ever-shrinking feature size of lithography, enabling the early years of Moore's Law. He wrote a seminal paper in 1974 relating feature size and power consumption that is now referred to as Dennard Scaling. His technological contributions earned him numerous awards, and accolades from the National Academy of Engineering, IEEE, and the National Inventor's Hall of Fame.
Dennard Scaling is what we used to call... (Score:4, Informative)
... Moore's Law. Incorrectly, or at least incompletely.
Most people don't know that Moore's Law is about price/transistor, which is somewhat related to bits/chip, and not related at all to clock speed, which is a big part of what everyone noticed between 1980 and 2010 or so.
Dennard Scaling petered out around 2012, so no more twice-as-fast-every-20-months-or-so.
We're still getting cheaper transistors, but for faster results we now have to do things seriously in parallel, which turns out to be really hard.
Re: (Score:1)
Anyway, Dennard? I read Lennart for a few miliseconds and almost rejoiced for Linux future.
Re: Dennard Scaling is what we used to call... (Score:3)
"Most people don't know that Moore's Law is about price/transistor"
That's good, because it isn't.
It's about the number of transistors in an IC. Price is orthogonal, although he did make a secondary observation of the cost remaining relatively fixed as the density increased.
Re: (Score:2)
You are both right.
The way Moore's Law is understood or talked about the past 30 years, it is about transistors per IC, as you stated.
But that is not what Moore himself talked about. He talked about the sweet spot for minimum price per transistor, but also that as technology improved, better densities would allow more devices per chip for same low cost per device. I think Moore would have agreed more with the poster above with whom you took issue, but as a practical principle, it has evolved into what you
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, someone on Slashdot who has actually read Moore's article.
Re: (Score:2)
The link I posted to Moore's original article was at an Intel site, now paywalled. :
Here are other links that have the original Electronics article
https://hasler.ece.gatech.edu/... [gatech.edu]
hasler.ece.gatech.edu/Published_papers/Technology_overview/gordon_moore_1965_article.pdf
https://www.computerhistory.or... [computerhistory.org]
https://archive.computerhistor... [computerhistory.org]
computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102770822
archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2017/03/102770822-05-01-acc.pdf
https://ethw.org/w/images/2/24... [ethw.org]
ethw.org/w/imag
Re: Dennard Scaling is what we used to call... (Score:2)
Requiesce in (a hectic) pace (Score:3)
Re: Requiesce in (a hectic) pace (Score:1)
Let me just say, (Score:3, Funny)
Bob, you lived a DRAM good life!
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the memory
It must be said... (Score:5, Funny)
Robert, you will never be forgotten...at least until we restart.
Re:It must be said... (Score:5, Funny)
Now that he's no longer getting refreshed, he will start decaying.
It's okay (Score:2)
I'm sure he's backed up on disk somewhere.
"IBM does not innovate" (Score:3)
The usual response: "Go away until your favorite company has as many Nobel Prizes as IBM has, "
Thanks for the memories! (Score:2)