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MSNBC on Infinera's Optical Chip
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.
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
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.