>> Is it possible that in the future (I won't guess when) we will have a CPU that does everything we need it to do, and that further advances won't be worth the investment? At that time, won't the CPU become a commodity that doesn't command large gross margins?<<
Concurrent with the introdiction of the 8088 chip, a Popular Mechanics reporter wrote, and I quote (well sort of, but it is close enough) "the power inherent in the 8088 chip is overkill for the home computer user" "what in the world would anybody need 64k of memory for?"
Software capabilties scale with the capabilities of the hardware on which it runs. The "need for speed" will not be quenched until a PC chip can successfully mimic, or outperform on a "natural basis," the full functionality of the human brain. By that time, INTC, or whoever the PC hip leader is at that time, should have made their investors significant money.
IMHO, commodization is never a threat to cutting edge technology. The bigger horsepower engines became passe, so they migrated to the most economical, then the most horsepower per liter, etc., etc.
The real threat to cutting edge technology is cutting edge technology. What happens when Bill Gates gets pissed off because Andy Grove beat him in a game of chess, and Bil "discovers" how to include some of the Chip functions in his OS, such as floating point calucations, software modems, etc., or vice versa.
Then you may see a threat to the chip industry margins. |
