Electric voltage is very fast and used to make the processors of today, but there are actually faster technologies to build your circuits around. Light is such an alternative, both faster and can be sent over a longer distance, and therefore it will be possible that around 2010 we will see laser chip super computers. NEC has already demonstrated the first “Laser communications chip” that can transfer data through fiber optic cables at 25 gigabits per second. Many times faster than what equivalent electronic chips can do.
“Communications chips can convert electronic signals into optical ones. Using optical fibres to relay data between the chips is what may give this type of supercomputer the edge over previous ones using processors connected electronically.”
NEC is hoping that its laser technology will make it possible to launch a super computer capable of 1 petaflops sometime the next decade, I.e. three times as fast as today’s fatest, BlueGene with its 360 teraflops. May the power be with NEC and we hope to hear more about its “laser processors” in the future.
Source: New Scientist
