Engineers Demo First Processor that Uses Light for Ultrafast Communications
December 28, 2015 | University of California - BerkeleyEstimated reading time: 5 minutes
Engineers have successfully married electrons and photons within a single-chip microprocessor, a landmark development that opens the door to ultrafast, low-power data crunching.
The researchers packed two processor cores with more than 70 million transistors and 850 photonic components onto a 3-by-6-millimeter chip. They fabricated the microprocessor in a foundry that mass-produces high-performance computer chips, proving that their design can be easily and quickly scaled up for commercial production.
The new chip, described in a paper to be published Dec. 24 in the print issue of the journal Nature, marks the next step in the evolution of fiber optic communication technology by integrating into a microprocessor the photonic interconnects, or inputs and outputs (I/O), needed to talk to other chips.
"This is a milestone. It's the first processor that can use light to communicate with the external world," said Vladimir Stojanović, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the development of the chip. "No other processor has the photonic I/O in the chip."
Stojanović and fellow UC Berkeley professor Krste Asanović teamed up with Rajeev Ram at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Milos Popović at the University of Colorado, Boulder, to develop the new microprocessor.
"This is the first time we've put a system together at such scale, and have it actually do something useful, like run a program," said Asanović, who helped develop the free and open architecture called RISC-V (reduced instruction set computer), used by the processor.
Page 1 of 3
Suggested Items
Industrial PC Market Size to Record $1.75 Billion Growth from 2023-2027
05/03/2024 | PRNewswireThe global industrial pc market size is estimated to grow by USD 1.75 billion from 2023 to 2027, according to Technavio. This growth is expected to occur at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of almost 6.29% during the forecast period.
Gartner Survey Finds 61% of Organizations Are Evolving Their D&A Operating Model Because of AI Technologies
05/01/2024 | Gartner, Inc.Sixty-one percent of organizations are forced to evolve or rethink their data and analytics (D&A) operating model because of the impact of disruptive artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, according to a new Gartner, Inc. survey.
Real Time with… IPC APEX EXPO 2024: Operational Excellence and Smart Factory Initiatives
04/30/2024 | Real Time with...IPC APEX EXPOOperational excellence and operational efficiency are defined in this interview with Koh Young General Manager Joel Scutchfield. He touches on automation, AI, and collaboration as solutions to resource limitations. Koh Young's data-driven approach uses AI for process adjustments, data analytics, and supply chain enhancements. The discussion underscores the shift toward smart factory initiatives and the future of manufacturing, with a focus on reshoring, nearshoring, and technology utilization.
IDTechEx Report on Quantum Technology: Nano-scale Physics for Massive Market Impact
04/30/2024 | PRNewswireThe quantum technology market leverages nano-scale physics to create revolutionary new devices for computing, sensing, and communications. Across the industry, quantum technology offers a paradigm shift in performance compared with incumbent solutions.
NASA’s Optical Comms Demo Transmits Data Over 140 Million Miles
04/30/2024 | NASA JPLNASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications experiment also interfaced with the Psyche spacecraft’s communication system for the first time, transmitting engineering data to Earth.