newscientisttech.com— New Scientist has story about scientists who are developing a light-based processor by actually storing and delaying photons.Read more.
Dec 25, 2006View in Crawl 4
It seems down but duggmirror has it... <a class="user" href="http://duggmirror.com//hardware/Researchers_Develop_Photonic_Processors/plain.html">http://duggmirror.com//hardware/Researchers_Develop_Photonic_Processors/plain.html</a> or you can just read below..."Optical microchips that can store light for short periods of time before sending it on its way have been constructed for the first time by researchers at IBM in the US.The work is an important breakthrough for chip designers who hope one day to use ?optical buffers? in superfast processors that rely on photons instead of electrons for their processing power.Light is good at transmitting data at high rates because it can be its signal can be switched on and off quickly . But because photons interact only weakly with each other and with transparent materials, they are difficult to store.So while today's networks use light to transmit high-speed data between devices, the optical signals must be converted into an electronic form before they can be stored, processed or moved round on a chip.The strong interactions of electrons with each other and with conductors limit the speed at which they can of transmit information, raising fears that future chips will soon hit their top speed. For example, in the high-performance CELL chip developed for gaming by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, data has to be transmitted electronically among seven core processors, stretching current technology to its limits.Collision avoidanceIn a decade from now, however, there will be not seven cores but hundreds on a chip, according to Yurii Vlasov, a physicist at the IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, US, who developed the new buffers. Connecting these cores using light could solve this problem.Until now, the lack of optical buffers has been a key roadblock to these kinds of light connections. The way information is transmitted means that buffers must hold packets of data while a router decides where they are to be sent. Buffers are also needed to delay optical pulses ? so they do not collide at switching points ? and to synchronise streams of data coming from different places.One way of delaying light is by sending it through a length of optical fibre. But a light pulse would have to pass through 21 centimetres of fibre to be delayed by 1 nanosecond. That would be too bulky to use with microchips. Now IBM researchers have devised an optical buffer that can hold up to 10 bits of data in a chip.Around the bendThe buffer consists of a ?photonic wire? etched out of silicon dioxide and silicon on a conventional silicon chip. The wire guides the light along its length even as it makes sharp turns.Ordinarily, it would take 7 cm of a straight waveguide to delay a pulse of light by 1 nanosecond (because silicon has a higher refractive index than glass and so slows light by more), but Vlasov has been able to increase the delay with the help of a cunning trick.He created the wires in the shape of a series of microscopic loops and ensured that each ring resonated at the same frequency as the light travelling around it.The nature of the resonance traps the light so it makes about 70 passes around each loop before it passes into the next loop. In that way, the buffer can delay a pulse by as much as 0.5 nanosoeconds, even though it occupies an area of the chip only 0.03 mm2.?It's a very significant extension of earlier work," says Amnon Yariv, a specialist in optoelectronics at Caltech in the US. "
Here, i added a few things to the headline to actually make it accurate...Researchers Develop AN ELEMENT OF TECHNOLOGY PREDICTED TO ALLOW Photonic INTERCONNECTS ON TRADITIONAL SILICON Processors.please stop with the misleading and downright wrong titles....
It's called optical computing. Light is awesome to work with b/c light waves can intersect each other without interference. (Currently, wires passing electricity have to go through multiple layers to go around other wires.)
im sure the guys at NASA are excited about this. processors that are immune to the effects of radiation and electromagnetic interference is a BIG deal when it comes to space.
treelovinhippieDec 26, 2006
Aw, but I want processors with friggen lasers!(I guess photons are pretty close)
kuchdawgDec 26, 2006
It seems down but duggmirror has it... <a class="user" href="http://duggmirror.com//hardware/Researchers_Develop_Photonic_Processors/plain.html">http://duggmirror.com//hardware/Researchers_Develop_Photonic_Processors/plain.html</a> or you can just read below..."Optical microchips that can store light for short periods of time before sending it on its way have been constructed for the first time by researchers at IBM in the US.The work is an important breakthrough for chip designers who hope one day to use ?optical buffers? in superfast processors that rely on photons instead of electrons for their processing power.Light is good at transmitting data at high rates because it can be its signal can be switched on and off quickly . But because photons interact only weakly with each other and with transparent materials, they are difficult to store.So while today's networks use light to transmit high-speed data between devices, the optical signals must be converted into an electronic form before they can be stored, processed or moved round on a chip.The strong interactions of electrons with each other and with conductors limit the speed at which they can of transmit information, raising fears that future chips will soon hit their top speed. For example, in the high-performance CELL chip developed for gaming by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, data has to be transmitted electronically among seven core processors, stretching current technology to its limits.Collision avoidanceIn a decade from now, however, there will be not seven cores but hundreds on a chip, according to Yurii Vlasov, a physicist at the IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, US, who developed the new buffers. Connecting these cores using light could solve this problem.Until now, the lack of optical buffers has been a key roadblock to these kinds of light connections. The way information is transmitted means that buffers must hold packets of data while a router decides where they are to be sent. Buffers are also needed to delay optical pulses ? so they do not collide at switching points ? and to synchronise streams of data coming from different places.One way of delaying light is by sending it through a length of optical fibre. But a light pulse would have to pass through 21 centimetres of fibre to be delayed by 1 nanosecond. That would be too bulky to use with microchips. Now IBM researchers have devised an optical buffer that can hold up to 10 bits of data in a chip.Around the bendThe buffer consists of a ?photonic wire? etched out of silicon dioxide and silicon on a conventional silicon chip. The wire guides the light along its length even as it makes sharp turns.Ordinarily, it would take 7 cm of a straight waveguide to delay a pulse of light by 1 nanosecond (because silicon has a higher refractive index than glass and so slows light by more), but Vlasov has been able to increase the delay with the help of a cunning trick.He created the wires in the shape of a series of microscopic loops and ensured that each ring resonated at the same frequency as the light travelling around it.The nature of the resonance traps the light so it makes about 70 passes around each loop before it passes into the next loop. In that way, the buffer can delay a pulse by as much as 0.5 nanosoeconds, even though it occupies an area of the chip only 0.03 mm2.?It's a very significant extension of earlier work," says Amnon Yariv, a specialist in optoelectronics at Caltech in the US. "
beefbaronDec 26, 2006
Target their engines Malcolm.FIRE.
Closed AccountDec 26, 2006
Here, i added a few things to the headline to actually make it accurate...Researchers Develop AN ELEMENT OF TECHNOLOGY PREDICTED TO ALLOW Photonic INTERCONNECTS ON TRADITIONAL SILICON Processors.please stop with the misleading and downright wrong titles....
natmasterDec 26, 2006
It's called optical computing. Light is awesome to work with b/c light waves can intersect each other without interference. (Currently, wires passing electricity have to go through multiple layers to go around other wires.)
nofxjunkeeDec 26, 2006
I agree, but that doesn't make it any less cool.
graviszroDec 26, 2006
im sure the guys at NASA are excited about this. processors that are immune to the effects of radiation and electromagnetic interference is a BIG deal when it comes to space.