Note: When I found this article on The New York Times yesterday, I decided immediately to blog about it this week. However, since then, similar articles have exploded all over the news. However, nobody else has posted a technology blog for this week yet, so I’m going to take my chances and write about it anyway.
Researchers at Intel and the University of California announced a breakthrough in Photonic Technology on Monday. They have found a way to make “laser chips” that are both significantly faster and less expensive to build than comparable technology (IE optical transcievers).
The previously mentioned article in The New Times states that the laser-silicon chip was created by “bonding a layer of light-emitting indium phosphide onto the surface of a standard silicon chip etched with special channels that act as light-wave guides. The resulting sandwich has the potential to create on a computer chip hundreds and possibly thousands of tiny, bright lasers that can be switched on and off billions of times a second” (NY TIMES 9/19/06)
I see this as a huge development in terms of the future of technology. Though Intel and UCSB have said that it will be years before the product is available commercially, once that happens it will enhance computing as a whole. The researchers plan to be able to put as many as several hundred lasers on a single chip, which will enable data to be transferred at much higher speeds than our current interconnects.
For more info, see the article I’ve linked above as well as these two:
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/teehlThuBr6R9W/Intel-UCSB-Partner-for-Photonics-Breakthrough.xhtml
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,127163-page,1-c,topics/article.html
Wow, amaising blog leah. the new technology sounds awesome, but also exspensive….lol. I hope they go through with the laser chips.
Comment by TheBlueOne — September 20, 2006 @ 1:35 am
I was hoping someone would find this! Let’s talk about it in class!
Comment by The prof — September 21, 2006 @ 10:26 am