Stephen Downes

George Gilder, in a Wall Street Journal article last week (paywalled, but archived at GgNZ0), wrote that "the end of chips" is coming. "What's next? A wafer-scale integration model, which bypasses chips altogether." As Ken King writes in LinkedIn, "The next computing age will not be defined by smaller chips but by unified wafers—compact, energy-efficient processors that condense today's sprawling data centers into devices the size of a suitcase." To be clear: wafers are already here, and have been in development for some time (they're not something recent being developed by Elon Musk, despite what is suggested in the article). The actual building where I work also contains the Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre (CPFC), "the only end-to-end pure play compound semiconductor wafer manufacturing facility in Canada." CPFC was mentioned in the federal budget last week ("exploring options to best position the Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre to attract private capital"). You can also read about an American wafer initiative in this 2020 in this Venture Beat article. Now there are sceptics, of course, touting the benefits of microchips. And microchips won't disappear; you won't be using wafers in your phones or watches.