John carmack says silicon cpus are numbered

Over the past 5 years, we have seen some great advancements in CPU design. The world's largest silicon manufacturers have strived to improve the manufacturing process for processors, with more transistors without increasing the size of the chips based on the drop in nanometers. However, this will have a physical limit in a few years according to John Carmack.

John Carmack predicts the end of the silicon age

John Carmack (video game developer / programmer best known for being the creator of DOOM) has said he believes silicon-based CPUs are nearing the end of their useful lives.

Silicon CPUs "are nearing the end of their cycle, " declared the famous programmer.

This statement seems very clear, however, today silicon CPUs are far from being at the end of their useful life, since there is not yet a viable alternative. We recently saw one of the first processors created with carbon chips, but with very primitive functionalities when compared to any current desktop processor such as a Ryzen or Intel Core.

John Carmack added: “Have full confidence that we will see a couple of smaller nodes yet. So it will still make the chips cheaper, somewhat faster, and with more cores, but it's going to get to the end of its cycle. ''

Visit our guide on the best processors on the market

What is certain is that there are theoretical limits and it is said that it will be extremely difficult to evolve beyond the 3nm chips. Although to alleviate this situation, AMD and Intel are creating alternatives to stack multiple processors in a single package, such as Intel's 3D Foveros technology or the Multi-Chip-Module (MCM) design that AMD already implements in Ryzen.

What John Carmack says is true, but perhaps it is a little exaggerated to say that we are at the end of a cycle for silicon processors. What do you think?

Eteknix font