16. Measure MIT’s IBM 7094 Notebook Circa 2003 Year Processor Speed (MIPS) Main Memory (K Bytes) Approximate Cost (2003 $) 1967 0.25 144 $11,000,000 2003 1,000 256,000 $2,000 24 Doublings of Price-Performance in 36 years, doubling time: 18 months not including vastly greater RAM memory, disk storage, instruction set, etc. A Personal Experience
61. “ Now, for the first time, we are observing the brain at work in a global manner with such clarity that we should be able to discover the overall programs behind its magnificent powers.” -- J.G. Taylor, B. Horwitz, K.J. Friston
100. Average Life Expectancy (Years) Cro Magnon 18 Ancient Egypt 25 1400 Europe 30 1800 Europe & U.S. 37 1900 U.S. 48 2002 U.S. 78
101. Reference URLs: Graphs available at: www.KurzweilAI.net/pps/Google/ Home of the Big Thinkers: www.KurzweilAI.net
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117. New York Times Op-Ed "Recipe for Destruction," by Ray Kurzweil and Bill Joy, October 17, 2005
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122. Graphs available at: www.KurzweilAI.net/pps/Google/ Home of the Big Thinkers: www.KurzweilAI.net Reference URLs:
Hinweis der Redaktion
Total U.S. cellphone subscribers has doubled about every 2.3 years. Of course, as the US market becomes saturated, we're seeing the domestic growth rate decline (as noted in logarithmic plot), but even as we approach 90% penetration (255 million subscribers/300 million population = 85%), the U.S. is still adding about 20 million subscribers per year (the country didn't have 20 million total subscribers until 1994).
Calculations per second per $1000 have been following a double exponential trend in the past century, and over that period have been doubling every 2.1 years.
From 1991 through 2008, peak performance of supercomputers has doubled about every year. IBM's Roadrunner in 2008 is more than 250,000 times more powerful than the top supercomputer in 1991 and more than 83 million times more powerful than the Cray-1 in 1983. Roadrunner is equivalent to 10% of my 10^16 flops estimate of a human brain. Various projects aim for a computer within the decade that will exceed the human brain's processing capabilities.
The number of transistors per microprocessor chip has been doubling every 23 months since 1971. The Itanium "Tukwila" ("The next Itanium chip"), due in late 2008 or early 2009, will have about one million times as many transistors as the 4004 chip had in 1971.
Since 1971's 4004 chip, processor performance has been doubling about every 21 months, rising 1.7 million-fold through 2007.
Since 1971, Dynamic RAM Memory cost per bit has halved every 1.9 years, dropping by a factor of about a half-million between 1971 and 2008--a double exponential. So for the cost of 200 bits in 1971, you can get around 112 million bits now in 2008.
Since 1950, the cost of RAM has halved every 20 months -- a 25-billion-fold drop. Since 1975, the pace of decline has accelerated, halving every year-and-a-half.
Average Transistor price has halved about every year-and-a-half since 1968, falling some 60-million-fold over the 40-year period from 1968 to 2008
DRAM "half pitch" feature size (the distance between cells on a DRAM chip) has halved every 5 years since the late 1960's, dropping by a factor of 200 over 39 years. ITRS projects this feature size will continue dropping at about this rate through the early 2020's.
Dynamic RAM Memory "Half Pitch" Feature Size shows a consistent halving time of 5.4 years in feature size over 55 years (16 of which are based on forecast data). The halving time is 5.2 years using only 1967-2004. History and big-picture from ITRS 2007, Page 63: "Historically, DRAM products have been recognized as the technology drivers for the entire semiconductor industry. Prior to the late-1990s, logic (as exemplified by MPU) technology moved at the same pace as DRAM technology, but after 2000/180 nm began moving at a slower 2.5-year technology cycle pace, while DRAM technology continued on the accelerated two-year pace. During the last few years, the development rate of new technologies used to manufacture microprocessors has continued on the 2.5-year pace, while DRAMs are now forecast to slow to a three-year cycle pace through the 2020 Roadmap horizon. By moving on the faster 2.5-year cycle pace, microprocessor products are closing the half-pitch technology gap with DRAM,"
Total bits of memory shipped has doubled about every year since 1971. In 2007, about 6 billion times more bits were shipped than in 1971; the number shipped in 2007 is about equal to all the shipments between 1971 and 2005. We're now shipping what was a generation's worth--20 years of bits--in one year.
As noted in SIN, growth in the price-performance of magnetic data storage is not a result of Moore's Law. This exponential trend reflects the squeezing of data onto a magnetic substrate, rather than transistors onto an integrated circuit, a completely different technical challenge pursued by different engineering and different companies. The price-performance has followed a Moore's-Law-like trend, doubling every 1.8 years since 1956. In that year, a dollar could buy 200 bits. In 2008, that same dollar could buy 66 billion bits, or over 300 million times more storage per dollar.
Sequencing cost per base pair has been halving every 1.3 years since 1971, falling by a factor of over 100 million between the 1970's and 2008. The pace of price decline has displayed a double-exponential trend, so that since 1998 the halving rate has accelerated to about every 8 months. What would have cost $100 in the mid-1970's, and about $10 in 1990 fell to a dime in 2000 and 2 thousandths of a penny in 2008.
From 1982 to mid-2008, the number of base pairs and the number of sequences in GenBank's database have grown by about 60% per year, doubling every 18 months.
Doubling time for U.S. Internet data traffic has decreased from 1 year in the last chart to 10 months, exponentially doubling every 10 months since 1990. It has increased about 1.25 million-fold since 1990.
The capacity of the internet backbone is experiencing double-exponential growth. Since 1979 it's grown nearly 1-million-fold, to 40 Gigabytes per Second as of 2006 [using SONET OC-768 equipment]. The growth rate itself is accelerating. It took 5 years to go from 2.5 gigabytes/second to 10 gigabytes/second. It only took 3 to quadruple again, to 40 gigabytes/second. So we're already at a doubling rate of every year-and-a-half, and accelerating.
Calculations per second per $1000 have been following a double exponential trend in the past century, and over that period have been doubling every 2.1 years.
Over the past 80 years, the US economy has been growing at 3.1% per year. Since that growth is compounding, it now takes us about 8 (optional: 3.5) years to grow what the entire economy was in 1946 (optional: 1929), when the US was considered a very rich country. You can see economic growth, too, is a series of s-curves, punctuated by semi-regular recessions, as the economy retools and changes direction. Like a runner who has to stop every so often to check the map. The dot-com or railroad bubbles might have been bad for many investors but bubbles tend to rapidly commercialize new technologies. So even the bad times are important for technological progress.
Here’s a chart of per-capita growth over the past 80 years. Income has been doubling about every generation, an unprecedented rate in history. What's driving this acceleration is productivity growth. New technologies and innovations allow us to use our hours more productively, as we trade our shovels for harvesters, our secretary pools for gmail, and our typewriters for word processors.
Output per hour in manufacturing, one of the critical factor that makes us richer, has been growing at a rate of 2.9% since 1949, a 24-year doubling rate. Since the mid-1990's, productivity growth has sped up, to nearly 4.2%, which would be a doubling rate of about 17 years.
Here's a chart showing patent applications to the USPTO (or, "US Patent and Trademark Office"). You can see the exponential growth.There was a brief dip during both world wars, since lots of R&D went into the military, and that doesn't get patented. There was also a prolonged dip during the depression, since corporate R&D is sensitive to economic conditions. You can see that since the 1980's, we've had a real take-off in applications, suggesting a speed-up in innovation (this is clear with either linear and semi-log).
Annual PV production has been doubling every 2 years since 1996, a 40% CAGR. The growth rate has been double-exponential growth, itself doubling every 9 years.
Annual PV production has been doubling every 2 years since 1996, a 40% CAGR. The growth rate has been double-exponential growth, itself doubling every 9 years.
Since 1995, worldwide growth in PV production has been 37% per year. China and Taiwan have seen growth of over 100% per year, going from 1.7% of world production to nearly 22%. The US has actually been the slowest major economy, with 17% CAGR over the period, unsurprising since so much technology manufacturing is basing in Asia. (sidenote: US growth has NOT been double-exponential, though worldwide growth has been double-exponential.)
Since 2000, the main solar markets have seen exponential growth. Japan, the most mature market in 2000, has seen the lowest growth, a still-healthy 27% CAGR (doubling rate of under 3 years). Germany, and Europe in general, has seen annual growth rates in excess of 60%, a doubling rate of around 11-17 months, spurred by government subsidies as well as by high utility rates. The US, at a 48% CAGR, and a doubling rate of just under 2 years, comes in between the two. (sidenote: none are double-exponential; perhaps we're at an S-curve on penetration)
In the past 30 years, there has been a 26-fold reduction in the price per watt of solar modules, and this reduction in price has displayed an exponential trend downwards, halving every 6-and-a-half years (6.6y).