Delaying the Flow of Light on a Silicon Chip
Posted on December 28, 2006 Comments (2)
IBM Milestone Demonstrates Optical Device to Advance Computer Performance
IBM today announced its researchers have built a device capable of delaying the flow of light on a silicon chip, a requirement to one day allow computers to use optical communications to achieve better performance.
…
“Today’s more powerful microprocessors are capable of performing much more work if we can only find a way to increase the flow of information within a computer,” said Dr. T.C. Chen, vice president of Science and Technology for IBM Research. “As more and more data is capable of being processed on a chip, we believe optical communications is the way to eliminate these bottlenecks. As a result, the focus in high-performance computing is shifting from improvements in computation to those in communication within the system.”
…
“Today’s more powerful microprocessors are capable of performing much more work if we can only find a way to increase the flow of information within a computer,” said Dr. T.C. Chen, vice president of Science and Technology for IBM Research. “As more and more data is capable of being processed on a chip, we believe optical communications is the way to eliminate these bottlenecks. As a result, the focus in high-performance computing is shifting from improvements in computation to those in communication within the system.”
Additional information on silicon nanophotonics
2 Responses to “Delaying the Flow of Light on a Silicon Chip”
Leave a Reply
RSS Feed
January 23rd, 2007 @ 7:43 pm
“While other researchers have dragged light to slower speeds than the Rochester scientists, who got it down to one-three-hundredth of its normal velocity, the new method is far simpler…”
January 27th, 2007 @ 9:05 am
“Intel and IBM said they have discovered a way to replace that material with various metals in parts called the gate, which turns the transistor on and off, and the gate dielectric, an insulating layer, which helps improve transistor performance and retain more energy…”