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1. How much time does a modern computer need to make a few thousand
calculations?
2. How doews the supercomputer operate?
IS THERE AN END TO THE COMPUTER RACE?
1. Today the word «electronics» is in general usage. Millions of people have
electron watches. There are a lot of various radio and TV sets, video cassette
recorders and CD players in our houses. In factories and plants we are surrounded
with electronically controlled machines and instruments, we are carried by airplanes,
ships, trains and cars with built-in electronic devices, and satellites circle the globe.
In other words, we are living in an electronic world.
2. And the center of this world is a tiny silicon plate
1
of a few square
millimetres, an integrated circuit
2
, or a chip
3
, as it is more commonly known. The
integrated circuit is undoubtedly one of the most sophisticated inventions of man,
science and technology. It is in the heart of every electronic device and the more
cassette recorders, TV sets and computers we need, the more integrated circuits are
required.
3. When we speak about a further development of computers we mean not only
quantity, but also high technology and high speed. As the operation of an integrated
circuit depends on microscopic «components», the purity of all materials and the
cleanness at the plant they are produced at must be of the highest quality. A con-
tinuous search is going on in laboratories throughout the world for more perfect,
reliable and high speed electronic circuits.
4. In the past it took scientists and researchers a whole lifetime to make a few
thousand calculations, whereas for a modern computer this task is a matter of a few
seconds. At present computers capable of performing billions of operations a second
are required. Supercomputers are different from ordinary computers. The ordinary
computer does the computations operation by operation, while the supercomputer
operates like a brain: all operations are being done simultaneously.
5. In the next few years engineers will complete the work on computers of
above 2 billion operations a second. It will take a few more years to produce a 10-
billion operations computer. The fifth-generation computers performing 100 billion
operations a second will become available in the near future. Is there an end to this
race?
NOTES TO THE TEXT
1
silicon plate — кремниевая пластина
2
integrated circuit — интегральная схема
3
chip — кристалл
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