SAN JOSE, Calif.--Today"s microprocessors will become extinct by the end of the decade, to be replaced by computers built onto a single chip, Sun Microsystems Chief Technology Officer Greg Papadopoulos (ed[nelsons style voice] "ha ha") said Tuesday.
"Microprocessors are dead," Papadopoulos said, trying to provoke an audience of chip aficionados at the Microprocessor Forum here. As new chip manufacturing techniques converge with new realities about the software jobs that computers handle, central microprocessors will gradually assume almost all the functions currently handled by an army of supporting chips, he said.