Sunday, April 6, 2008
Using Photons & Nanophotonics, Computers May Use Light Instead of Electricity
Scientists and engineers are racing to develop ways to use light instead of electricity to avoid traffic jams inside computers.
Today’s fastest computers employ miles of tiny copper wires to connect multiple data processors packed on silicon chips. Each little "brain" - in effect, a miniature adding machine - must exchange information with hundreds or thousands of partners on the same or connecting chips.
"The weakest link in the overall capability of the computer is the ability to move information from chip to chip," said John Stroman, a computer design strategist at Intel Corp., the big computer-chip maker based in Santa Clara, Calif. "Moving information around is the biggest limitation on the performance of computers, and it becomes a greater limitation as CPUs become faster."
Computer scientists think that the solution may be photons, the tiny packets of energy that make up a beam of light. Photons aren’t the same as electrons, the fundamental particles of electricity.
The science of photons is known as "nanophotonics," since it deals with infinitesimally small elements at the nanoscale. A nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter; a nanogram is 1 billionth of a gram.
It will be several years before photons can do much of the work of electrons, but the pace of research is accelerating.
"Within the next five years, practical methods to move information around using light will exist," said an expert.
More from here ( on "Research )
Today’s fastest computers employ miles of tiny copper wires to connect multiple data processors packed on silicon chips. Each little "brain" - in effect, a miniature adding machine - must exchange information with hundreds or thousands of partners on the same or connecting chips.
"The weakest link in the overall capability of the computer is the ability to move information from chip to chip," said John Stroman, a computer design strategist at Intel Corp., the big computer-chip maker based in Santa Clara, Calif. "Moving information around is the biggest limitation on the performance of computers, and it becomes a greater limitation as CPUs become faster."
Computer scientists think that the solution may be photons, the tiny packets of energy that make up a beam of light. Photons aren’t the same as electrons, the fundamental particles of electricity.
The science of photons is known as "nanophotonics," since it deals with infinitesimally small elements at the nanoscale. A nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter; a nanogram is 1 billionth of a gram.
It will be several years before photons can do much of the work of electrons, but the pace of research is accelerating.
"Within the next five years, practical methods to move information around using light will exist," said an expert.
More from here ( on "Research )
Labels: Computer-Science, Electrical-Engineering
PermaLink - Using Photons & Nanophotonics, Computers May Use Light Instead of Electricity posted by Ecacofonix : 9:31 AM
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