A research team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has developed a super-fast chip that could advance broadband internet technology.

The multiplexer chip is the first of its kind to be developed using the quantum effect of resonant tunnelling diode, according to the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

The integrated circuit chip built at the University laboratory has an operating speed of 45Gb/s, while using roughly 75 per cent less energy than the previous version. The speed enables the transfer of about 4 full-length movies in one second.

The best operational broadband Internet services provide users with data transfer speed of 40Gb/s while most other high-speed online connections offer 10Gb/s.

Professor Kyoung-Hoon Yang, project leader, explained: “Beside speed, the greatest achievement is energy use”

He stressed that energy use in chips is a crucial factor because power creates heat that can melt circuits and make them inoperable.

Yang continued: “By cutting down on energy use, the new chips can be made smaller and with faster data transfer speed.

According to Yang, efforts are underway to increase operational speed to 100Gb/s, with energy consumption to be cut to 10 per cent of current chips like the high electron mobility transistor, the heterojunction bipolar transistor and the complementary metal oxide semiconductor.

There is speculation that the chips could be developed over the next two years, and become the benchmark in this field as existing chips have limited development capabilities.