Author: Paul Doire
Date: 20:45:02 02/11/04
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On February 11, 2004 at 20:55:14, Robin Smith wrote: >On February 11, 2004 at 18:49:32, Slater Wold wrote: > >>On February 11, 2004 at 18:19:52, Will Singleton wrote: >> >>>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/11/technology/11CND-CHIP.html >> >>Links to subscription sites, suck. >> >>Copy + Paste. :) > >Intel Says Chip Speed Breakthrough Will Alter Cyberworld >By JOHN MARKOFF > >Published: February 11, 2004 > >AN FRANCISCO, Feb. 11 — Intel scientists say that they have made silicon chips >that can switch light like electricity, blurring the line between computing and >communications and presenting a vision of the digital future that will allow >computers themselves to span cities or even the entire globe. > >The invention demonstrates for the first time, Intel researchers said, that >ultrahigh-speed fiberoptic equipment can be produced at personal computer >industry prices. As the costs of communicating between computers and chips >falls, the barrier to building fundamentally new kinds of computers not limited >by physical distance should become a reality, experts said. > >The advance, described in a paper to be published on Thursday in the scientific >journal Nature, also suggests that Intel, as the world's largest chipmaker, may >be able to develop the technology to move into new telecommunications markets. > >It will free computer designers to think about the systems they create in new >ways, making it possible to conceive of machines that are not located in a >single physical place, according to scientists and industry executives. It will >also make possible a new class of computing applications based on the >possibility of transmitting high-definition video and images hundreds or even >thousands of times faster than possible on today's Internet. > >"Before, there were two worlds — computing and communications," said Alan Huang, >a former Bell Labs physicist, who has founded the Terabit Corporation, an >optical networking company in Menlo Park, Calif. "Now they will be the same and >we will have powerful computers everywhere." > >One potential application, he said, would be an interactive digital television >system allowing viewers to watch a sporting event from multiple angles, moving >the point of view at will while the game is being played. With only a limited >number of digital cameras, it might be possible to synthesize a virtual moveable >seat any place in the stadium. Such a feature exists currently in video games, >but it is far beyond the capacity of today's digital television transmission >systems. > >Intel said the technical advance, in which the researchers use a component made >from pure silicon to send data at speeds as much as 50 times faster than the >previous switching record, is the first step toward building low-cost networks >that will move data seamlessly between computers and within large computer >systems. > >"This opens up whole new areas for Intel," said Mario Paniccia, a an Intel >physicist, who started the previously secret Intel research program to explore >the possibility of using standard semiconductor parts to build optical networks. >"We're trying to siliconize photonics." > >The device Intel has built is the prototype of a high-speed silicon optical >modulator that the company has now pushed above two billion bits per second at a >lab near its headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif. The modulator makes it possible >to switch off and on a tiny laser beam and direct it into an ultrathin glass >fiber. Although the technical report in Nature focuses on the modulator, which >is only one component of a networking system, Intel plans on demonstrating a >working system transmitting a movie in high-definition television over a >five-mile coil of fiberoptic cable next week at its annual Intel Developer Forum >in San Francisco. > >"If Intel and other semiconductor technology companies can develop silicon >optically as successfully as they have electronically, then silicon is certainly >set to grow in stature as an optical material," Graham Reed, a physicist at the >University of Surrey, wrote in a commentary on the Intel paper in Nature. Dr. >Reed is the holder of the previous 20-megabit silicon optical switching speed >record that Intel shattered. > >With this breakthrough, Intel researchers said, they have shown that it should >be possible to build optical fiber communications systems using Intel's >conventional chipmaking process without resorting to either the exotic materials >or hand-assembly techniques that are now the standard in the fiberoptics >networking industry. Can we imagine the day when chips themselves are bypassed and data is transferred on a pure energy beam..i.e. lasers..no more bottle necks and clumsy mechanical hardware...just data at the speed of light. Will it happen in my lifetime...ahem...well...I can be a dreamer can't I. Regards, Paul
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