Thursday, February 21, 2008
Chairman of Intel at MIT
Craig Barrett, former CEO and current Chairman of Intel came to talk to MIT yesterday.
Perhaps his most memorable line went something like: "whenever i say petaflop i feel like i'm talking about pornography"
Considering the room was full of nerds, I think his talk wasn't technical enough. It's reassuring to know that Intel expects MOS structures to scale down to 32 nm and below and that they use hafnium for gate dielectrics. But he mentioned that some new switching technology will be necessary to take us beyond where Intel's current vision takes us. He also seemed enthusiastic about photonic circuits using optical waveguides for signal transmission.
I would have liked to ask him about how Intel responded to AMD's open bus standards and whether Intel sees tighter integration with co-processors as a key part of the future of computing. Perhaps some other time.
Someone asked what we could do to improve Washington to direct national resources towards science education and technology development. He said engineers need to run for office. I think no one would vote for us because we're too nerdy.
Perhaps his most memorable line went something like: "whenever i say petaflop i feel like i'm talking about pornography"
Considering the room was full of nerds, I think his talk wasn't technical enough. It's reassuring to know that Intel expects MOS structures to scale down to 32 nm and below and that they use hafnium for gate dielectrics. But he mentioned that some new switching technology will be necessary to take us beyond where Intel's current vision takes us. He also seemed enthusiastic about photonic circuits using optical waveguides for signal transmission.
I would have liked to ask him about how Intel responded to AMD's open bus standards and whether Intel sees tighter integration with co-processors as a key part of the future of computing. Perhaps some other time.
Someone asked what we could do to improve Washington to direct national resources towards science education and technology development. He said engineers need to run for office. I think no one would vote for us because we're too nerdy.
