"BCS" <ao@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:78ccfa2d350718cb0e1e3ffdd376@news.digitalmars.com...
> Reply to Nick,
>
>
>> Yea, I've been hearing a lot about that. Be interesting to see what happens. Console gaming will probably be the best place to watch to see how that turns out (what with Sony's Cell and all).
>>
>> Also, a few years ago I heard about some research on a "smart memory" chip that would allow certain basic operations to be performed within the memory chip itself (basically turning the memory cells into registers, AIUI). IIRC, the benefit they were aiming for was reducing the bottleneck of CPU<->RAM bus traffic. I haven't heard anything about it since then, but between that and the "lots of simple CPU cores" predictions, I wouldn't be surprised (though I'm not sure I would bet on it either) to eventually see traditional memory and processors (and maybe even hard drives) become replaced by a hybrid "CPU/RAM" chip.
>>
>
> One option people are throwing around in this is the Field Programmable Processor Array, think a FPGA with more complex gates.

Oh yes, the processor that can rewire itself on-the-fly. A very interesting idea.