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MSNBC on Infinera's Optical Chip

Posted by timothy on from the tripping-fantastic dept.

pnoti writes: "This article at MSNBC is a loose overview of Infinera's new chip with circuits that control the flow of light instead of the flow of electrons. 'If this chip performed as they hoped, it would shatter many of the theoretical limits regarding the behavior of light in optical communications networks.'" Update: 04/10 04:26 GMT by T : That's MSNBC, not The New York Times -- oops.

132 comments

  1. Makes you wonder by cscx · · Score: 1

    Is such an implementation of ICs reliable, when compared to the trusted-and-true silicon ICs of today? I mean, I understand the huge quest for faster and faster chips, but I hardly see this making an impact into the IC industry. Maybe 10-20 years down the road, but not now. Plus, the manufacturing has to be a lot more expensive.

    1. Re:Makes you wonder by Soko · · Score: 4, Interesting
      From the article:


      Hardly. Infinera's thumbnail-size chip is the first integrated photonic circuit. Though Infinera won't reveal the chip's cost, when built with manufacturing techniques used by chip makers like Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, it likely could be made very cheaply. The savings in manufacturing in turn would lower the cost of network equipment by half, perhaps even more. Beleaguered network carriers like Level 3 Communications and bankrupt Global Crossing could build networks for much less, and run them more efficiently and at a lower cost--maybe even profitably. For consumers, Infinera's chip could be instrumental in allowing communications companies to offer high-speed Internet access at affordable prices. And one day this technological breakthrough could lead to a device capable of projecting a holographic display, as on the TV series Star Trek.


      Pretty much refutes your points.

      The best thing about photonics is the absence of (photon) migration, which is a big problem with small trace size electronics (electron migration). (Aside: If a silicon engineer knows better, please correct me.) No migration happens because photons have 0 rest mass, and therefore don't have intertia. This means they are a lot less likely to over shoot the switching mechanism, and maintian signal. This is in addition to thier electrical interference resistance.

      Commercial products may take a while to come to fruition since there will have to be some major re-tooling at the fabs, but with so many huge benefits, it'll come sooner than you think.

      Now, where to put that Holodeck....

      Soko
      --
      "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
    2. Re:Makes you wonder by J.+J.+Ramsey · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm not so sure that photons not having mass means that they have no inertia. Photons have momentum, can exert a (very) slight pressure, and can be pulled on by gravity. Given that, their inertia is likely to me small, but nonzero.

    3. Re:Makes you wonder by harvardian · · Score: 3, Informative

      Being pulled-on by gravity doesn't mean anything. Gravity (according to Einstein) is the warping of space-time, so things that are massless still experience it. According to Newton's equations, that wasn't the case.

    4. Re:Makes you wonder by gTsiros · · Score: 1

      Photons don't have inertia ?!?

      Where did you come from?!

      Photons DO have inertia!
      Inertia has nothing to do with rest mass, but it has with mass.

      photons have mass

      they have inertia.

      they are particles after all (this is the basis of QM. particles can be seen as waves and vice versa)

      --
      Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
    5. Re:Makes you wonder by cornjones · · Score: 2, Insightful

      gravitons (the particles we hypothesis are responsible for gravity but have not been able to observe) are generated in proportion to the mass of an object. the object they are working on doesn't (i believe) need to have mass

      But gravity is such a weak force that the mutual attraction (ie both objects be attracted to each other) is often necessary for any significant effect.

      That being said, light can be/is observably effected by large gravity producing bodies (stars, etc...) and would stand to reason that there is some effect by smaller gravitational pulls, even if that effect is, as yet, unobservable to us.

    6. Re:Makes you wonder by sluke · · Score: 1

      You state:

      The best thing about photonics is the absence of (photon) migration, which is a big problem with small trace size electronics (electron migration). (Aside: If a silicon engineer knows better, please correct me.) No migration happens because photons have 0 rest mass, and therefore don't have intertia. This means they are a lot less likely to over shoot the switching mechanism, and maintian signal. This is in addition to thier electrical interference resistance.

      Actually photons can still "overshoot" switching devices etc. Photonic Band Gap materials have all of their properties because of they way they exploit the quantum nature of the light. So, just like semiconductors, there is a finite probability that the light will tunnel to another place. The reason that I don't think this will be a problem any time soon is that for the wavelengths of light people are interested in making "photonic circuits" with, the features of the material are so small and at this point difficult to manufacture, that the tunneling barriers are effectively infinite. Once methods are developed for working effectively with arbitrary 3-D fabrication at the precision we are accustomed to in silicon, photon migration will likely become a problem.

    7. Re:Makes you wonder by QuantumFTL · · Score: 1

      No migration happens because photons have 0 rest mass, and therefore don't have intertia.

      Ahh, yes... a very common mistake by the non-physicist. It seems to make sense that something that has zero rest mass cannot possibly have inertia. This is, however, completely wrong. The problem is that massless particals travel at the speed of light, which is where some interesting things happen in the equations. We start out with the general equation:
      E^2 = m^2*c^4+p^2*c^2

      Substituting 0 for m, we can solve for p = E/c. It's well known that photons carry energy, and thus they must carry momentum. (There are other methods of deriving this, however I will not get into them... pretty much all waves carry momentum, one way or another).

      How else would projects like the Astronomical Society's Solar Sail function?

      As for this being the primary reason that optronics are better than electronics, I'm not entirely sure... definately massless particals are in general better for things like this (where you want maximum information carried for a minimum amount of energy, in a minimum amount of time). Photons typically propagate faster than electronic signals, and optical circuits usually have a much higher bandwitdth due to frequency-level multiplexing.

      Also, it is possible to use physical properties of photons to compute fast fourier transforms, which are especially important for digital signal processing. Not to mention the amazingly fast access times of ultra-huge holographic databases.

      Dislaimer: I'm not a physicist, but I'm studying to become one.

      -Justin

    8. Re:Makes you wonder by jo2nathan · · Score: 1

      Electron migration is only a problem because it knocks (migrates) metal atoms out of a section of wire when you have high current densities. Basically it leads to an break in the connection. Light can travel through 'empty' space. If it one photon knocks something out of the way the next one can still come through. The thing is you can't use the same manufacturing processes to create a photonic chip. Plain/doped silicon (that intel and AMD use) isn't a practical way to deal with light. Eventually the processing for something like this could get to the point where it is as inexpensive but only after Billions of dollars of investment in processing techniques. And then the fabrication facilities will still cost billions. This kind of thing has great potential but nothing that is going to happen overnight, or even in a year or two. Probably not in the next 3 years, not unless Intel/IBM/ (your choice of multi-Billion dollar corporation) invests majorly in it.

    9. Re:Makes you wonder by n9hmg · · Score: 1

      That's not what this one is for. This is about the LSI of an optical communications set, whether a multiplexer, a booster (can't remember what they call them... the repeater thing), whatever.... all these things that involve lots of big discretes under control of asics, now can be built using lithographic processes, instead of robots, soldering irons, and people. Righ now, if you lose one of those suckers, you fix it. with this breakthrough, you replace it.
      It's like in the old days, when you'd have a hard drive fail, a tech would come out with an oscilloscope and debug it... time lost, labor bought. Now, if you have a hard drive fail, you tell the software it's offline, flip the lever and pull out the old drive, push in the new drive and flip the lever, tell the software to set up the drive and put it back in the pool.

    10. Re:Makes you wonder by spike+hay · · Score: 1

      Of course photons have inertia. Haven't you heard of light sails? Those are pushed by sunlight.

      --
      If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
  2. uhhhh by iamjim · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Sign me up...

    Intel Lasium?

  3. ny times? by Dolly_Llama · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Title of article says new york times, link points to msnbc... editors on crack yet again.

    --

    Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan

    1. Re:ny times? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Offtopic?
      bleh.

  4. What about beer? by VirexEye · · Score: 1

    Yes but when will they have microchips than can control the flow of beer?

    1. Re:What about beer? by Nilatir · · Score: 1

      He who controls the beer controls the universe...

      --

      "We were half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold."
      -- Hunter S. Tolkien
    2. Re:What about beer? by lambsonic · · Score: 1

      Yes but when will they have microchips than can control the flow of beer?

      You don't need any particular chip, just the right protocol.

      --
      # make clean sig
  5. Login for New York Times by Rebel+Patriot · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    username: privatenospam
    password: privatenospam

    --
    Slackware forever. Honestly, what else would you trust when it absolutely positively has to be stable, secure, and easy
    1. Re:Login for New York Times by Rebel+Patriot · · Score: 1

      Ha! I just saw New York Times and karma whored it. Boy do I feel stupid. :^)

      --
      Slackware forever. Honestly, what else would you trust when it absolutely positively has to be stable, secure, and easy
    2. Re:Login for New York Times by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Looks like it bumped you up to +1 bonus!

  6. New York Times? by NearlyHeadless · · Score: 0, Redundant
    MSNBC, Red Herring != NYT


    Perhaps Slashdot might considering having some kind--any kind--of editorial process. At the minimum, have the article proofread by one other person before it gets posted.

    1. Re:New York Times? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "No one expects the Spanish inquisition!"

      Posting AC to protect the guilty!

    2. Re:New York Times? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How many FUCKING TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO POST YOUR FUCKING MONOLINUX SEXUALLY DEVIANT GARBAGE!!??!?!

      Shut the fuck up your stupid mother fucking asstwit sister fucking mom raping dog licking father molesting anal probing alien believing communist pinko nazi bastard stalinistic fecal boy!
      Shut the fuck up your stupid mother fucking asstwit sister fucking mom raping dog licking father molesting anal probing alien believing communist pinko nazi bastard stalinistic fecal boy!
      Shut the fuck up your stupid mother fucking asstwit sister fucking mom raping dog licking father molesting anal probing alien believing communist pinko nazi bastard stalinistic fecal boy!
      Shut the fuck up your stupid mother fucking asstwit sister fucking mom raping dog licking father molesting anal probing alien believing communist pinko nazi bastard stalinistic fecal boy!
      Shut the fuck up your stupid mother fucking asstwit sister fucking mom raping dog licking father molesting anal probing alien believing communist pinko nazi bastard stalinistic fecal boy!
      Shut the fuck up your stupid mother fucking asstwit sister fucking mom raping dog licking father molesting anal probing alien believing communist pinko nazi bastard stalinistic fecal boy!
      Shut the fuck up your stupid mother fucking asstwit sister fucking mom raping dog licking father molesting anal probing alien believing communist pinko nazi bastard stalinistic fecal boy!
      Shut the fuck up your stupid mother fucking asstwit sister fucking mom raping dog licking father molesting anal probing alien believing communist pinko nazi bastard stalinistic fecal boy!

  7. Red Herring by The+Gardener · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah, Red Herring carried the story, and with a little lower "fluff factor". At least, it seemed to me . . .

    The Gardener

    --
    --
    1. Re:Red Herring by JFMulder · · Score: 1

      Yeah, this story is the same as on MSNBC, except for the layout is less good.

    2. Re:Red Herring by zeno_2 · · Score: 1
      Yeah, this story is the same as on MSNBC, except for the layout is less good.

      less good?

    3. Re:Red Herring by tswinzig · · Score: 2

      Yeah, Red Herring [redherring.com] carried the story, and with a little lower "fluff factor". At least, it seemed to me . . .

      That's strange, since the byline on the MSNBC article says they got it from Red Herring. I guess the MS in MSNBC has their editors used to trimming articles for the lowest common denominator?

      --

      "And like that ... he's gone."
    4. Re:Red Herring by bryan1945 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, this story is the same as on MSNBC, except for the layout is less good.

      less good?

      Would you prefer "more bad"?

      --
      Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
    5. Re:Red Herring by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have a serious hard-on for monolinux, don't you?

      By the way, I have a hard-on for your mom and your cat, but I'm only 1 of 2 right now. You can guess which one.

      Spank me hard, baby. And tickle my sphincter with your tongue! Your dad turned me on to that, though he practiced on your sister first.

      What gets me rock hard is Linux. Monolinux, duolinux, quadcocklinux, I take it all in all the wrong orifices.

      The best part is the AC... just who could this asshole be? Hmmm.....

    6. Re:Red Herring by zeno_2 · · Score: 1
      "Yeah, this story is the same as on MSNBC, except for the layout is less good."

      How about..

      The layout is not as good =)

    7. Re:Red Herring by BigBir3d · · Score: 1

      most writer's freelance. write a good story for Red Herring, MSNBC says "hey, we want that too" and the writer thinks "ka-ching!"

    8. Re:Red Herring by rot26 · · Score: 1

      You mean "worser".

      --



      To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
    9. Re:Red Herring by JFMulder · · Score: 1

      How about, I'm not english, so I might suck sometime at grammer? :-)
      No offense taken, anyway, thanks for the tip.

    10. Re:Red Herring by zeno_2 · · Score: 1

      Sorry I wasn't really trying to offend you in anyway, none taken so no biggie. And don't worry, people that have spoken english thier whole life still say that.

      When I posted the reply, I was REAL bored at work, and it caught my eye =).

      Cheers!

    11. Re:Red Herring by JFMulder · · Score: 1

      I bet you we're real bored at work again to reply to this also. So am I right now :-)))

  8. Read before you whore for karma by Neil+Blender · · Score: 1

    The story is on msnbc. Not really sure where the NYT comes in.

  9. The shock will come when by tcd004 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    It's revealed that one can spy on another's computer activity by tracking the flickering light escaping from the cracks of the computer case!

    Switzerland shifts out of Neutral

    Tcd004

    1. Re:The shock will come when by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, sooner or later they'll be able to spy on them, like how you can spy using the flicker on the walls from a crt (This istrue, cos it was on /.)

  10. Photonic bandgap technology by Vireo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, they are certainly not the firsts to make photonic chips. Optical mux/demux (cascaded couplers) are routinely built as planar waveguides on semiconductor materials. However, the size of their chip seems really small, which suggests that they use photonic bandgap technology, which uses very small arrays of refraction index changes in which light at certain wavelenght can't propagate to make it perform tricks, like turning at 90 degrees on very small distance. However, I didn't saw any mention of this in the article. Anyone can confirm it is the case?

    1. Re:Photonic bandgap technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Your are missing the point.
      Of course, optical components have been out for years. But no body was able to create an optic-based IC. That is, until Infinera.

    2. Re:Photonic bandgap technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Photonic IC in InP can use low-loss curved optical waveguides with bending radius down to 30 microns. There are no commercial photonic IC's at the moment that are based on photonic bandgap technology.

      For an example of what's possible in today's InP technology have a look at these circuits from Delft University and ThreeFive photonics in the Netherlands. They show a photograph of the bare chip containing a 4-wavelength optical crossconnect on 1.5 mm by 3 mm! This is without use of photonic bandgap structures (which could in principle reduce the size even further).

  11. informative my ass. by stubear · · Score: 0, Troll

    The stories are identical except you didn't have to keep clicking "next" to read the entire article on MSNBC. Nice attempt to discredit the article because of the association between Microsoft and NBC (MSNBC). I can't believe the moderators gave this troll +1, informative.

    1. Re:informative my ass. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can't believe that your brain allows you to still breath. Or have you just hooked your anus up directly to your mouth, like MicroSuxor does? Are you Bill Gate's fluff boy? Does he have super-sexy tasting spewage? Or are you just Ballmer, which means you take it in all orifices?

      Christ on a purple pony- you fucking apologists for the company which produces the worst fucking software in the known universe just piss me off. It wouldn't surprise me if you were with Clinton raping that Broderick women.

      Asspony.

  12. India's Brain Drain is US's gain by raahul_da_man · · Score: 0, Troll

    Serving on the company's board are Pradeep Sindhu, founder, vice chairman, and chief technology officer of Juniper Networks; Dan Maydan, president of Applied Materials; T.J. Rodgers, president and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor; Alex Balkanski, a general partner at Benchmark; and Vinod Khosla, a general partner at Kleiner Perkins.

    I can't help wondering what they could have achieved in India, instead of coming to the US and helping make an already rich country richer.

    1. Re:India's Brain Drain is US's gain by leviramsey · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      The answer: nothing. India has been a country that has been "almost there" for decades.

      The real important news, though, is Mozilla 1.0RC1 is almost here!

    2. Re:India's Brain Drain is US's gain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've yet to meet an Indian tech person that is half as good as any of my co-workers.

      "What they could have achieved in India" you ask? Maybe make that hellhole a civilized country? Adopt a real religion? Stop breeding like animals? Maybe invent deoderant, or a sanitary bathroom?

      The possibilities are endless!

  13. Cheaper, maybe, cheap? No. by bertok · · Score: 2, Informative

    Slashdot is not the only publication with bad editors! To quote the article: "Though Infinera won't reveal the chip's cost, when built with manufacturing techniques used by chip makers like Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, it likely could be made very cheaply."

    Well, not quite. You see, the article later mentions that Infinera used InP (Indium Phosphide) chips instead of silicon, probably because they needed it's superior electrical and optical properties. With InP, it's possible to make 100 GHz circuits, but not cheaply. Certainly not for the same cost as a modern, silicon CPU.

    1. Re:Cheaper, maybe, cheap? No. by duct_tape_n_wd40 · · Score: 1

      Aw nuts, a Slashdot article that I can ramble on about ad nauseum shows up (I work in a related field, none of that sissy network administration stuff for me), and I have to catch a plane this afternoon...

      Sure this sounds neat, and I'm not trying to knock anybody, but a few quick points -

      i) as others have mentioned, this is a really nice press release disguised as a magazine article. They made some devices - congratulations!

      ii) Fab - it sounds like they're doing this on bits of wafers in beakers on a wetbench, with presumably less than state-of-the-art litho. Great for proof of concept, but keep in mind that larger, better capitalized and more experienced outfits have trouble moving small-scale hero devices into assembly-line style production mode. It constantly amazes me how much compound semiconductor processing is still done by a combination of black magic and luck by a few process engineers with "golden hands".

      iii) Related note: [these things will be cheap] when built with manufacturing techniques used by chip makers like Intel - try buying modern process equipment that will handle 2" and 3" InP wafers. I dare ya. All the modern interesting tools are built to handle acres of dinner-plate sized Si wafers, and can't cope with the teeny-tiny ones (hey, the Si market is about 100x bigger, can't blame the equipment manufacturers).

      On the other hand, maybe I should take a look through Welch's publications in my ample free time...

      --
      .siggy .siggy .siggy .siggy hoi hoi hoi - Prosit!
  14. Ouch... by Duncan3 · · Score: 1

    "Some of Infinera's 700 or so competitors"...

    Even if they do it, the cost competition is gonna make sure they never make any money....

    --
    - Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
  15. Questions??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well suppose one day everything that is electronic today becomes optical.

    What will our test instruments look like? What will be the units of measure?
    How is work done in an optical device? Will we have 'fiber buss bars' a la Outland that carry 'DC light' everywhere?
    Will we have to break open circuits to measure things a la current probe?

    Will there be optical equivalents of everything electronic or will the optical stuff be a specialized peripheral of electronic devices?

    1. Re:Questions??? by BakaMark · · Score: 2, Informative
      What will our test instruments look like?

      At least there is one current example of this today. There are devices that are used to tap optical fibre lines, that work by actually splicing into the line.

      These devices have been around for a number of years now, and I have heard of one such device being able to tap an optical fibre bundle that has 50 individual optical fibres within it. Of course it will leave the optical pathways semi-intact, and detection is only by using complex test gear on either end that will tell you the consistency of the fibre as well as the points where the joins have been made. These things are usefull if you want to wiretap an optical fibre cable.

      Of course removing such a device from the optical fibre bundle will effectively break the connection.

    2. Re:Questions??? by benhaha · · Score: 1

      If you squeeze optical fibres the leak light, so no problem there.

      For chips, I would think you'd have to design in ports specifically for monitoring, as is done for regular chips anyway.

      --
      NO ID: BEING FREE MEANS NOT HAVING TO PROVE IT
  16. Is this really a photonic switch? by Animats · · Score: 3, Interesting
    From the description, this is a switch or router on a chip with optical in/out, but the usual transistor processing. The innovation is that the lasers and receivers are on the same chip as the switch.

    There are true optical switches (from Nortel, for example), although they're circuit switches for backbone links. An optical IP router is a ways off.

  17. Light by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Couldn't this theoretically be thrown off by light nearby? Like internal LEDS for the power switch?

    1. Re:Light by BigBir3d · · Score: 1

      wrong wavelength. any visible light would be of a wavelength that is way to huge to fit. besides, it will be a closed circuit, just like any electrical circuit should be.

  18. change of address by tux-sucks · · Score: 4, Funny

    Indium Phosphide Valley, anyone?

  19. Light inside by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And I thought I was tired of changing light bulbs already...

    Darn the computer's dead... lemme check the light bulb.

  20. Recognizing space savings? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder if the size of the device will allow companies to recogize significant space saving costs.

  21. I think I know how it works by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's elementary physics, really. You basically just have to tweak the harmonic resonance to the flux capacitor - and EUKEKA - photonic routing!

    1. Re:I think I know how it works by America+Uber+Alles · · Score: 0

      You basically just have to tweak the harmonic resonance to the flux capacitor

      Then all you need to do is get the machine up to 55MPH and supply 1.21 Gigawatts.

      --
      The reality of free software.
    2. Re:I think I know how it works by katcoker · · Score: 1

      Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?

      --
      Max: "You mind if I drive?" Sam: "Not if you don't mind me clawing at the dash and screeching like a cheerleader."
    3. Re:I think I know how it works by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it's 88mph, git

  22. Straight-thru by lostchicken · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For this to be any good, the signal path must be pure optics, e.g. the same photon must go all the way thru the switch, and just be routed around. That means the switch would have to understand the rays of light out my 100baseFX network, or fibrechannel bus, and deal with it in photonic form.

    This solves EMF issues, and other nasties. Electronics could be used for low speed control, and indicators, but fibre be used for ALL high speed stuff, including PCB traces and everything else.

    Anybody developed optical solder yet... ;-)

    --
    -twb
  23. If you keep clicking next enough times, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you'll find that the Red Herring story continues on after the MSNBC article stops.

    1. Re:If you keep clicking next enough times, by stubear · · Score: 2

      I think you'll find you're wrong. Open both side by side and scroll through the MSNBC article. You'll find they have the exact same sections which are exactly the same length and both end on the "Absolutely Fab" section. The ONLY difference I found in content was in the subtitle. The Red Herring article contained a semicolon followed by a qualitative comment about everything prior. The MSNBC article only contained the subtitle leading up to but not including the semicolon and qualitative comment.

  24. How much does that material cost in comparison.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    with silicon, and can the same fabrication plants acutally work on both materials?

  25. Good Business Plan by nackrm · · Score: 0

    They continue to look for additional ways to make optical communications even cheaper through applications of their integrated photonic circuit.

    ___
    Wow, Infinera seems to be on to something here. It is a company based solely on making a product, making it better, then trying again to make things work better. I wonder what Micro$oft would have to say if they heard of this idea.

    "Do you remember how we won the Second World War?
    We cracked their codes and we never let them know."
    &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp--Dr. Robert Thibodeau

    --

    Be a man! View at -1
    acm.cs.uwec.edu
  26. Re:Postus With the Mostus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the balls are
    never can see more
    is it true
    i am told to guess
    telephones and vicoprofen
    sharply televating ok

  27. Where's the beef? by apk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I read the article -- verbatim -- in Red Herring's printed rag. There's no meat to that article. What exactly is it that this thumb-sized chip does, and how/where will this device be used (to reduce cost, or increase functionality, or increase circuit density per rack, or...) in the optical systems being deployed by the optical carriers?

    Does this chip offer SONET layer switching (or muxing/demuxing)? SONET layer Performance Monitoring? Does it bring anything to the DWDM playing field, in either the long-haul or metro arenas?

    Optical carriers buy optical transmission and switching systems, not components, with accompanying network management platforms to operate, integrate, and manage it.

    I ask again, where's the beef? As it is, this is just a glorified press release.

    Andy

    1. Re:Where's the beef? by ckedge · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Absolutely.

      This article is the equivalent of Bell Labs EXECUTIVES and CEO's claiming that they were in the process of single handedly pulling the transistor out of their a**es, before the transistor had even been created yet.

      It ignores the 20-30 years of physics and engineering physics that came before it, it ignores the thousands of people and hundreds of groups who have been working at the dozens of different approaches to this EXACT problem, and it ignores the engineers who actually came up with the designs for the devices they are intending to use, and the related background between all of these.

      I should know. I spent four years doing a degree on one possible approach to creating the exact components they claim they are working on. I worked with InGaAs/InGaAsP/InP Quantum Well structures and one possible method of creating a fundamental process to modify such a structure into the types of devices they are thinking about. We were thinking ahead to the exact thing that they are thinking of.

      And we ourselves were basing our work on 10-15 years of other people's work. The first people who came up with the possibility of using non-silicon semiconductors was 3+ decades ago, and of creating fully integrated InP/etc based all optical ciruits is about 20-30 years old.

    2. Re:Where's the beef? by cornjones · · Score: 1

      this may be nitpicky but when you say "we ourselves were basing our work on 10-15 years of other people's work" I think of two things.
      1. DUH!!!
      2. You are basing it on a lot more than 10-15 years of work. as the simplest example, did you come up w/ the mathematics that you were using. no? oh thanks newton, that calculus sure did help (to say nothing of the fancy things we have built on top of it). what about feynman and QED? not that I know about your work specifically but any scientific observation really owes itself to the last 4000 years (thanks euclid, aristotle, etc) of human scientific development.

  28. Beer Chips? Old News by Tokerat · · Score: 2, Informative
    Yes but when will they have microchips than can control the flow of beer?

    ...This one keeps the flow going pretty steadily. :-D

    --
    CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
  29. skip it... by doooras · · Score: 2

    what we need are isolinear chips and optronic relays

    maybe throw in a few bioneural gelpacks

    1. Re:skip it... by cybercomm · · Score: 1

      LOL... i always wondered what a mixture od Star Trek TNG+Voyager would be like...though i presume gelpacks would be considerably faster than the IC chips =D

      Oh well those things are far far away into the future, but there is one thing that isnt (or at least the article claims it is not) and that ia a hilodeck... /me starts planning holo-emmiter infrastructure....

      --
      Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
  30. That begs the question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does he rate an imposter?

  31. Re:Makes you wonder theWhy.com by theWhy · · Score: 1

    it will become reliable with time. IC industry folks need to keep all options open.

  32. zero REST mass, in theory, and YMMV by StandardDeviant · · Score: 2

    But while the current theory holds that mass is invariant, the particle's _energy_ (which, when you think about it, is what you're worried about anyway) is most certainly not invariant. Since these little fellows are zipping along at a literally astronomic clip, even the "massless" photon has energy. IIRC, experiemental data held the mass of a photon as being something like 3.9x10^-(12?15?) that of the already quite svelte electron...
    Electric fields generate magnetic fields, and both can in theory interfere with the propagation of electromagnetic waves, which are the other side of the photon coin (really, at that level, what is a wave? what is a particle? they're two ways of looking at the same thing. actually this is valid all size levels, but the wave/particle duality effects for anything larger than an angel's behind is vanishing, incredibly, stunningly small)
    Besides, I was under the impression that quantum tunneling was the origin of some of the migration patterns in (or should I say through?) circuits. The lighter a particle is, the more prone it is to this "now I'm here, FOOLED YA! now I'm there" behavior... I'm too lazy to go dig up my pchem text, i'm sure somebody will follow up with a more precise explanation and some of the relevant equations. (I'm not a particle physicist, just a chemist, but we do rub elbows occasionally, much like every now and again a molecular biologist will talk to the chemists next door ;-))
    This is not to say this isn't a cool advance. It's just that I'm even more curious now as to how they got the magic chip to work, given what I imagine the physical and technical hurdles were...

    --

    News for Geeks in Austin, TX
    1. Re:zero REST mass, in theory, and YMMV by rainwalker · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ah, glad to see a fellow P Chem student here! I have my book handy, and so I figured I'd make a stab at posting that more precise explanation you asked for.

      Tunneling has to do with the energy of the particle. In the one-dimensional particle in the box theory, the transmission coefficient T is given by an equation that I cannot reproduce due to the ascii art issues, but is a roughly second-order polynomial curve when plotted as T versus E/V0, where E is the energy of the particle and V0 is the "height" of the potential barrier, moving from T=0 at E/V0=0 to T=~1 at E/V0=~2. This would mean that the higher energy of the particle, the higher of a potential barrier needed to prevent tunneling. Now, free electrons have higher energy than photons, so it would be harder to contain them, as it were. Plus, this isn't the only issue. Photons have no charge, and so are undisturbed by electrical and magnetic fields, but electrons of course are negatively charged, which complicates things in 2 main ways, first they do not travel in a straight line (like photons), and having 2 narrowly separated regions with different charges (such as in a transistor) will lower the potential barrier. I believe this is why SOI (silicon-on-insulator) is useful, as it makes it more difficult for the electrons to migrate from region to region.

      I hope this helps some, and if I am wrong, feel free to correct me!

  33. Storyline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For those who can't remember this movie here is a short summary:
    Adam Maitland (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis) drown as a result of a car accident. They come back as ghosts and must haunt their old house. They are dismayed when they find out that the artsy fartsy Deitz family and their gothic daughter are now living in the Maitlands' home. The Maitlands hire looney ghost Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), to rid the Deitz family from their house, but he has other plans. I won't spoil the plot, but this movie is a must see classic. The movie has an original feel, excellent soundtrack, and is absolutely hilarious. Definatly Michael Keaton's best work. Still waiting for a sequel....

  34. Re:Postus With the Mostus by Bitter+Old+Man · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    When I was a boy, my dear father bought my brother and I a magnifying glass. It was an unseasonably warm and sunny summer on the farm, and we had just discovered a nest of spotted Wyoming honey beetles. Why, I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be them under the heat of that magnifying glass! No, sir. Nowadays, I tell this story, and the animal rights killjoys just get all over me. I tell you, PETA is an organization from Hell. None dumber, or more annoying! They tell me I can't even eat meat. How in the sam hill am I supposed to get through my week without my sixteen ounces of fresh-cut tenderloin? I'll eat my steak, I'll eat it well-done, I'll eat it with salt and pepper, and none of it is any of those damn hippies' business! None of their business, I tell you! None! Then want to take away my freedom, and turn this fine country into a police state, but I won't let them. The liberal bastards haven't taken my guns away yet. Let them try, I say. Let them try.

    - Bitter Old Man

  35. There is some T&M stuff by TalShiar00 · · Score: 1

    There are plenty of test and measurement equipment available for the optical market. Look around Agilent's T&M lightwave page.

  36. Anybody developed optical solder yet... by TalShiar00 · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately no. But that woudl be cool to breadboard a optical circut. Unfortunately we have to resort to special cutting and polishing tools just to connect a few components together.

    How to piss a optical network admin off: go to the long haul switch and yank a few wires out, they will be there for hours redoing all the lines.

  37. Not about Si vs. InP!! (Re:Makes you wonder) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    *Sigh*...

    This InP technology is not going to be replacing Si anytime soon. Si is wonderful and there's still quite a bit more we can squeeze out of it before we've reached the limits of such technology. This company is using InP because like many III-V semiconductor compounds, it has good optical properties.

    If the original poster had taken the time to actually read the thing, maybe he would have realized that this is an important step forward in terms of optical switching and networks. This device performs one or more of the functions necessary for this type of work (there are 5 of 'em if I read the article right). Silicon is no good in this regard since it's an indirect gap semiconductor.

  38. Buckets o' beer by Carnivorous+Carrot · · Score: 1

    > Yes but when will they have microchips than can control the flow of beer?

    I don't know about that, but AI thought experiments include a device that mimics a human brain made via buckets of water, poured. I suppose buckets of beer could work just as well keeping the brain moving along at a steady clip.

    --
    "Has [being a kidnapped teenage girl, raped repeatedly for months] changed you?" - Katie Couric to Elizabeth Smart
  39. Re:Postus With the Mostus by Carnivorous+Carrot · · Score: 1

    A fairly large, but cheap, Fresnel lens can reach a thousand degrees or more. Try that on Peta.

    --
    "Has [being a kidnapped teenage girl, raped repeatedly for months] changed you?" - Katie Couric to Elizabeth Smart
  40. SSSCA workaround? by autopr0n · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hrm, If the SSSCA passes as is, it will dissallow "electonic digital" devices from being used without copy protection. But it dosn't say anything about optical digital devices :P

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
  41. Re:In by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Funny, this site redirected me to screwmesomemore.microsoft.com

  42. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And in related news, a whole bunch of people just decided that "leet speak" was stupid about 2 years ago.

    AC'd 'cause you are a flaming idiot, and if I were you I wouldn't get your hopes up about the "sex0rs" any time soon.

    Christ on a trampoline- at least be funny if you troll, asshat.

  43. Re:How much does that material cost in comparison. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With silicone, can the same fabrication plants actually reproduce Pamela Anderson?

  44. Re:At least Monolinux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh, lookee here, our monolinux hippy again! So nice to see you are spouting your gay love, anal intrusions again!

    I'd love to lock you up in a room with trollaxor (sp?) for an hour, just to see how mangled you'd be.

    Move on people, nothing to see here besides this assmonkey.

  45. Re:A CLOCKWORK ORANGE Part 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hi, thanks for writing!

    Now shut the fuck up!

  46. Competitors Abound by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What these guys are doing is hardly unique. Take a look at Luxtera.

  47. point here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    hot grits, linux, freebsd, M$, conspiracy theory, the shrub, beowolf cluster, and ___ post.

    I'm a troll and proud of it mod me -4

  48. can this chip calculate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    can you process with this chip? or is it only good for switching and stuff.

  49. Re:Who cares? by on+by · · Score: 0

    screw you

  50. Re:Star Trek: Voyager is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What really cracks me up about this is that the Voyager Sucks Ass troll didn't even bother to write a new troll for it. He just uses the BSD is Dying troll post with a few words changed around.

    He at least could have changed Netcraft to NBC or somthing. Or whatever channel STV is on.

    Funny in it's own way though. These kind of trolls are one of the reasons I view at -1. Just watch out for the goatse. LOL.