Researchers unveil light technology prototype
A prototype technology that uses light instead of wires to send information, could provide a way of bringing huge amounts of bandwidth in an energy efficient way to all kinds of machines.
According to researchers at IBM, the technology could allow the transmission of 8 trillion bits (terabits) per second of information - Â equivalent to about 5,000 high-definition video streams using the power of a single 100-watt light bulb.
Consistent with green computing initiatives, the new optical technology could save massive amounts of power in supercomputers. For a typical 100 metre long link, the power consumed by the optical technology is 100 times less than today’s electrical interconnects, and offers a power savings of 10 times over current commercial optical modules.
This prototype “green optical link” is designed to meet the bandwidth requirements for peta- and exa-flop supercomputing, marking a significant leap from related work unveiled by the same research team a year ago. The new technology puts optical chips and optical data buses in a single package with standard components.
Clint Schow, researcher at IBM, and part of the team that built the prototype, said:Â “Last year we unveiled an optical transceiver chip-set that could transmit a high-definition movie in under a second using highly customised optical components and processes.
“Just a year later, we’ve now connected those high speed chips through printed circuit boards with dense integrated optical ‘wiring.’ Now we have built an even faster transceiver and have moved the optical components away from custom devices to more standard parts procured from a volume manufacturer, taking an important step toward commercialising the technology.”
Read more at IBM
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