A PS3 processor, known for their reliability and effectiveness
We all know how conductivity works – an impulse is sent through a conductive material into a receptor. And those conductive materials are usually made out of metal, since metals are some of the most conductive materials in the world. Well, researchers from Berkeley just invented a new light-based microprocessor 50 times faster than regular wires.
- The single-chip microprocessors measures as little 3×6 mm
- The new technology can send data up to 300Gbps per square mm
- Fiber optics also uses far less energy than regular electrical wires
- It’s possible to make the optical chips without modifying currently existing semiconductor manufacturing processes
- We can expect to see the chip out by early 2017
Researchers from MIT, as well as from the Universities of California at Berkeley, and that of Colorado, have come up with the novelty microprocessor, which can use wavelengths of light, as well as simultaneously sending data through a single fiber.
The single 3×6 mm processor can send data of to 300Gbps per square mm, 50 times faster than regular electrical wires. This is because fiber optic both utilizes less energy that regular wires and it also offers a far larger bandwidth.
The microprocessor created by the team of researchers uses fiber optic links to send signals instead of the regular electrical wiring.
Vladimir Stojanović, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at Berkeley, as well as Miloš Popović, assistant professor at CU-Boulder’s Department of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering released a statement, talking a bit about the creation of the new microchip.
First of all, this is the first processor in the world to have the photonic I/O in the chip; it’s the first to use light in order for it to communicate with the outside world.
Second of all, computer specialists all over the world have started to work on applications for the new technology.
The applications include, but are not limited to smartphones, large data centers, super computers, self-driving cars, network chip architecture, laser sensors and even brain imaging.
The possibilities are as endless as your imagination, as everything that uses a microchip today could one day soon enough employ the use of the new much faster and much more efficient technology.
Even though the researchers suspect that the microchips will first be used in data centers soon after their 2017 release, they assure us that worldwide experts are already working on applications for the still developing technology.
Image source: Wikimedia
