I'll be making an attempt here to compare that number to the complexity of programs in software. It's the first time I try to do this and I'm sure I don't know enough to make a good comparison, anybody please correct me.
The binaries of Firefox on Debian Stretch (oldstable), when just counting the main program binary and .so files, amount to about 100 MB of compiled code. These are stripped hence will mainly consist of binary code and constants.
Making a flip flop in hardware requires 6 transistors IIRC. What if I compare 1 bit in software with 1 flip flop in hardware--OK, code is constant (could be etched as a PROM, but that's a useless comparison), but represents some complexity that probably needs more transistors to represent. E.g. an if statement (after evaluating a value to be dispatched on) needs a conditional jump assembly instruction (8 bytes?), and perhaps another jump instruction when the success branch is finished (another 8 bytes). This comes down to 128 bits, 768 transistors with my stupid calculation; enough to route data etc.?
So, encoding a program of the complexity of Firefox (binary part) as hardware would then need 100e686 = 4.8e9 transistors. Given 100e6 transistors per mm^2, this would need 48 mm^s chip area, a chip 7mm*7mm, not far from what CPUs use?
Thus, today's web browsers and CPUs seem to be comparable in complexity? Or, a web browser could be encoded entirely as hardware and about fit on a chip? I find that unexpected and a bit surreal, loading a huge program like Firefox is just bringing in the same amount of complexity into the running system as there already is active in the CPU? Or, another line of expectation in my thinking is, CPUs are very small compared to the large programs, programs are being serially executed with a smallish set of instructions precisely because complexity in Hardware needs to stay small. Actually maybe that's not really true?
I don't what the power output of 80s amorphous silicon PV cells (those used for pocket calculators). But I'd be very happy to see a tiny linux terminal retrofitted to run on solar.
The switching faster bit has only been happening very incrementally with the breakdown of Dennard scaling. Thankfully the less energy bit seems to be part of a more fundamental process than Moore's Law[1] and there are nice, clear, theoretical limits on how power efficient a computation can be which we're nowhere near hitting[2].
