Intel Researchers Demonstrate 40Gbps Optical Chips 49
scott3778 writes "Intel Researchers announced they have successfully demonstrated a 40Gbps optical chip, an accomplishment the company says will yield cheaper photonic integrated circuits. 'chip makers have shown a keen interest in photonic integrated circuits (PICs) over the past few years because of their ability to provide a cost-effective solution for optical communication and future optical interconnects in computing industry. There are obstacles, though: One of the key components needed for silicon PICs is the very high-speed silicon optical modulator, which is used to encode data on optical beam.'"
Insensitive (Score:1)
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I wish these companies would stop pinching trademarks when they create stupid acronyms.. If it's leads to 40ghz chips and technology, they should put a little more thought into a funkier ground-breaking name for their concept..
Silicon! (Score:5, Informative)
* Sam's Laser FAQ [drexel.edu]
Catalyzing development. (hopefully)
- Does anybody have links or papers re: manufacturing of fiber optics or very small optical beams? Would be great to have.
They need to give one of these for this lady... (Score:5, Funny)
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Yeah, but how many? It's like askin' the square root of a million... no none will ever know.
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http://www.internetworldstats.com/blog.htm [internetworldstats.com], there are currently 1,173,109,925 internet users. Clearly, there are not enough TLAs to go around, and so I propose TLAv2. TLAv2 will increase the number of available TLAs to 8031810176; this is almost seven times the number of people currently using the internet!
These fancy new seven-letter three letter acronyms (
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"PICs use optical integrated circuits now? woah, so much for just running my toaster!!"
ok thats a bad example but you get the picture.
more multiple meanings for acronyms in the tech industry is just what we need!
Re:PICs? (Score:4, Funny)
Ooh had enough, eh? (Score:1)
Cool, but ho hum in the year 2075 (Score:2, Funny)
high-speed silicon optical modulator (Score:3, Funny)
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Oblig. star trek... (Score:2)
Isolinear chips!
O-E converter (Score:1)
Re:O-E converter (Score:4, Informative)
The optical IC they came up with isn't optical entirely. The internal logic is still electrical but they've managed to do a silicon-level electro-optical converter and directly send the optical signal out (I'm guessing through a microlens). This isn't likely to make internal logic (the next Pentium...wait they don't use that name anymore) calculate faster, but it'll be interesting to see this used as a RAM interface, for instance, or for multi-processor interconnect.
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It's pretty difficult to make a lot of microwave components (circulators, etc.) be this broadband!
This sucks for modding (Score:3, Funny)
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Immerse it in lead and then run it on Xrays. Duh.
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Sorry.. (Score:1)
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Not for general-purpose computing (Score:1)
People in the communications business know not to bet against electronics. Optics are very useful for long distance communications, but for several reasons the technology in the linked article will not make a new CPU nor will it be a chip-to-chip interconnect.
This technology will be useful for integrating lasers into signal-processing chips.
Also, would the editors kindly link to the original Intel post? The Gearlog story adds absolutely nothing.
Are totally optical chips possible? (Score:2)