White coats at IBM today said they have built the world's teeniest optical switch, measuring 100 times smaller than the cross section of a human hair. Big Blue said its new nanophotonic switch device brings the company another step closer to creating computer chips that use light pulses instead of electrical signals on copper …
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Posted Tuesday 18th March 2008 09:05 GMT
Nature Photonics? Is that the same publisher as "Glow-in-the-Dark Left Nostril Inhaler Weekly"? (Thanks, George Carlin) Now I have to find it to see what they publish to fill a magazine for over a dozen issues . . . besides this sounding like seriously cool technology.
Posted Tuesday 18th March 2008 09:05 GMT
Sorry, but that 'actual size' image made me laugh out loud at the exact moment a call dropped into my headset. That's hilarious. Put me in a good mood for the rest of the day.
Top stuff, keep it coming.
Posted Tuesday 18th March 2008 09:05 GMT
"Specifically, the promise of optics will become more and more appealing as chip makers continue to increase processing cores at roughly the same speed that shaving supply companies add superfluous blades to their razors."
You now owe me a new keyboard after you forced me to spray beer all over my current one with that comment. Can I have a SteelSeries 7G please?
Posted Tuesday 18th March 2008 09:05 GMT
Those diagrams really helped put things in perspective.
Posted Tuesday 18th March 2008 09:39 GMT
It'll be "I want a pool of flesh-eating backteria with frickin lasers on their membranes!"
Posted Tuesday 18th March 2008 10:11 GMT
My browser never lets me c the pictures so will that optical "thingy" that shaves 4000 angels @ a time have 4000 blades? and what happens to all the shavings?and...........sorry, mine is the one with coffee all over it.
Posted Tuesday 18th March 2008 10:56 GMT
So what happens when a stray bit of dust/fluff/hair drifts into the path of the light beam?
Posted Tuesday 18th March 2008 12:10 GMT
Nothing, as long as it doesn't deflect the light beam far enough for to cross another beam. If it does we're screwed...
Posted Tuesday 18th March 2008 13:06 GMT
Don't be silly, they are so small that dust won't be able to get in.
Also, they'll be sealed like HDDs.
Posted Tuesday 18th March 2008 15:57 GMT
What kind of framerates in Quake 4 will an optical processor with 1TB/s bandwidth provide? Should I wait to upgrade?
Posted Tuesday 18th March 2008 22:19 GMT
So you have made me find the first bright pixel on my monitor.
Looking at the 'Actual size' picture, I noted 1 bright pixel, and thought 'that must be it then'
Then I scrolled the page and the picture moved, but the bright pixel didn't...
Posted Tuesday 18th March 2008 22:45 GMT
"speed that shaving supply companies add superfluous blades to their razors"
So are we adding a new unit of measurement to the reg standards
Posted Wednesday 19th March 2008 03:00 GMT
Microprocessor design on this platform imbedded in nanotubes spread through a polymer surface can coat the hull of spacestations and function as hull breach safety systems that immediately identify/isolate/and correct any meteorite penetration of space station hull. Same thing for aquatic submersibles and the same concept is applicable to synthetic skin covering artificial limbs... to provide sensory inputs through the limb to the brain.
These microcircuits would be imbedded in human tissue/bones to provide communication interface and real time NET humanlinks for private-commercial uses and for use by the combat soldier in the field as the soldier physically hosts an entire array of communications systems in human flesh and bone.
Wow. It ain't Kansas anymore AND it ain't Oz either. Its something BETTER!
Posted Wednesday 19th March 2008 18:37 GMT
Why do people still design circuits for a Manhattan-style grid? Wouldn't interconnection be simplified and real estate optimised by laying the components on hexagonal grid? With the right inter-bus co-ordination algorithms, scalability would come for free.
Posted Wednesday 19th March 2008 22:23 GMT
This is all well and good, but you know Sarah Conner is just going to blow it up.
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