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NYT: Laser Chip Could Be Revolutionary
The New York Times reports that scientists at Intel and Cal-Santa Barbara have developed a new silicon-based chip that can produce laser beams. "The advance will make it possible to use laser light rather than wires to send data between chips, removing the most significant bottleneck in computer design," writes Times tech reporter John Markoff.
I'm generally wary of stories about world-changing early-stage technologies that are years from commercialization. But some of the photonics experts quoted by the Times seem to agree that this would be a significant advance. Here's a key explanatory paragraph:
Lasers are already used to transmit high volumes of computer data over longer distances — for example, between offices, cities and across oceans — using fiber optic cables. But in computer chips, data moves at great speed over the wires inside, then slows to a snail’s pace when it is sent chip-to-chip inside a computer. With the barrier removed, computer designers will be able to rethink computers, packing chips more densely both in home systems and in giant data centers.More chip density in data centers? Let us be the first to ask: How will we cool it? Fortunately, it sounds like there's a few years before data center managers need to sort that out.
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By Rich Miller 
September 18, 2006 | Permalink | >Get Posts By E-mail
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