Lenovo loves its red mousing nipple, Apple digs its aluminum and IBM adores those light pulses. Nearly two full years after we heard this very company touting breakthroughs in science thanks to a nanophotonic switch, in flies a similar technique from Yorktown Heights that could "greatly further energy efficient computing." As the story goes, gurus at IBM have figured out how to replace electrical signals that communicate via copper wires between computer chips with tiny silicon circuits that chat using pulses of light. The device is called a nanophotonic avalanche photodetector, and according to Dr. T.C. Chen, this kind of embedded optical interconnection makes the "prospect of building power-efficient computer systems with performance at the Exaflop level" something that could be seen in the not-so-distant future. Reportedly, the avalanche photodetector demonstrated by IBM is the world's fastest device of its kind, able to receive optical information signals at 40Gbps and simultaneously multiply them tenfold. We know that's over some of your (read: our) heads, but there's a sufficiently nerdy video after the break that gets right down to the whos, whats, whys and wheres.
So now I know what happened to TC Chen after he lost the '85 US Open after he tied the low 3 round total.... Poor guy is only now known for his double hit on the fifth hole.
....anyway, this tech is still really cool, and prolly is used right can blow SATA port speeds out of the park if they just find a way to increase the range even to a few inches.
@abedinthehouse Except that higher SATA speeds aren't going to do jack to speed up hard drive transfers. This is only for on-board interconnections that are just a few millimeters apart (chip to chip). There are already fiber technologies for external connections like TOSLINK (Fiber optic audio cable). This would probably be best used in area on a motherboard or other circuitry where chip to chip communication needs to be as fast as possible. An example being the communication between a processor and RAM modules. That connection would benefit greatly from this tech.
Wow that picture is goldmine for IBM HR. A white ,african american and an asian guy working on the same thing. If those are actual guys, I would play the racial harmony part (but in a subtle way).
When can I get my 100 TB microSD card in my Phone that will be processed by an Exaflop Processor driven by Windows Phone 8 OS so that it can hang and I have to reset it and lose my Terbit 5G connection while I was playing a multi-player Halo 6...
@NIMBUS Hell you can! Replace white with ultraviolet and even Crysis will fly around at 15562112141008150028460469 FPS! Your fucking monitor will melt, man!!!!11111one
Combine this with the recent (last couple of years?) discovery in Australia that in an experiment a pulse apparently passed the destination gate before the pulse even passed the source gate (effectively going back in time) and you have some fairly massive computing power. Imagine breaking 1024-bit encryption BEFORE you even clicked on the mouse. ... but will it run Crysis?
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posted March 7th 2010 8:40PM
Exaflops? What were they called when they went out?
@Unverified User I was gonna ask the same thing
@(Unverified)
Is that oscilloscope in the background running Mac OS X? O.o
@Blackstar No, it's Agilent Infiniium series Oscilloscope and it runs Windows. The X's that it shows are eye diagram crossings.
@stoffer
What's that you say? You have no sense of humor?
It seems pretty slow, I can see the light and even the 1's and 0's.
*looks at co worker with a cheesy grin* :]
So now I know what happened to TC Chen after he lost the '85 US Open after he tied the low 3 round total.... Poor guy is only now known for his double hit on the fifth hole.
Dejavu anyone????
I swear I saw this video and read a similar article not less than a week ago here on Engadget?
Shit, accidentally pressed submit, Damn comment system!!!!
....anyway, this tech is still really cool, and prolly is used right can blow SATA port speeds out of the park if they just find a way to increase the range even to a few inches.
@abedinthehouse
Except that higher SATA speeds aren't going to do jack to speed up hard drive transfers. This is only for on-board interconnections that are just a few millimeters apart (chip to chip). There are already fiber technologies for external connections like TOSLINK (Fiber optic audio cable). This would probably be best used in area on a motherboard or other circuitry where chip to chip communication needs to be as fast as possible. An example being the communication between a processor and RAM modules. That connection would benefit greatly from this tech.
Wow that picture is goldmine for IBM HR. A white ,african american and an asian guy working on the same thing. If those are actual guys, I would play the racial harmony part (but in a subtle way).
@arnavdesai
how do you know that guy is african american he could be french guyana, british, etc...
@xconan *rolls eyes*
When can I get my 100 TB microSD card in my Phone that will be processed by an Exaflop Processor driven by Windows Phone 8 OS so that it can hang and I have to reset it and lose my Terbit 5G connection while I was playing a multi-player Halo 6...
$#!^, I just got fragged at 400 Gbs...
=D
this isn't new. its like fiber optics. using light instead of copper and electricity
Sorry, IBM, but this is way too P.C. to be real.
Admit it: this is two engineers chatting with the building janitor..
@woowoowoo22
It's probably an EE, CpE, and CS guy all arguing who is better.
@woowoowoo22 Ironically, the black dude is their boss.
Imagine the overclocking abilities since it uses less power.
@scody008
Unfortunately, you still can't overclock it faster than light...
@ch4ch4
wider spectrum?
@NIMBUS Hell you can! Replace white with ultraviolet and even Crysis will fly around at 15562112141008150028460469 FPS! Your fucking monitor will melt, man!!!!11111one
@loocas I think your eyes would melt first.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7285/full/nature08813.html
for those with uni access...
Might I point out that IBM was the one that put the red mouse nipple on the Thinkpads in the first place?
Is this similar to the way Intel's LightPeak works?
I didn't understand a single word of that video, but damn this is cool!
Tiger Woods have put himself together.
Combine this with the recent (last couple of years?) discovery in Australia that in an experiment a pulse apparently passed the destination gate before the pulse even passed the source gate (effectively going back in time) and you have some fairly massive computing power. Imagine breaking 1024-bit encryption BEFORE you even clicked on the mouse. ... but will it run Crysis?