Remember that progress in silicon computing hardware to date has been
mostly based on increasing the number of devices per square mm, *not* per
cubic mm. That is, our computers still occupy a flat surface area perhaps
a few microns thick. there is no practical incentive to go "up" until we
hit the atomic scale.
And it's interesting that about the same time we'll hit that limit we gain
the tools to build up and out in volume, and probably to make computers
even more cheaply. Power consumption/cooling becomes a real limit some
time after hitting the molecular scale, though.
Has anyone the numbers handy? How many TOPS can one get for 100 watts of
power (half a PC's power consumption), without reversible computing?
-PW