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Light Emitting Silicon Steps It Up
h4mm3r writes "STMicroelectronics plans to announce a breakthrough on Monday in light-emitting silicon that could lead to a new generation of more powerful computing processors and more efficient automobile components as well as
potentially higher-speed optical data-transmission systems. (gotta register, free yadda yadda)"
I'm more curious about whether this could make photo-sensor diodes (read: solar cells) more efficient as well. That could lead to widely used poly-silicon being a reasonable alternative to Gallium Arsenide as far as power (whereas now, it's used solely due to cost).
I like this bit in the article:
"The first applications of the new technology will be to build power control devices in which the control circuitry is electrically isolated from the power switching devices, the company said. Currently such isolation can only be achieved by using external components, adding bulk and cost to designs."
Are they trying to re-invent opto-isolators?
This sounds like what they're going to be doing at first... The article points out that current opto-isolators need to be made with external components, whereas these would be made as a monolithic device. Still, opto-isolators are fairly cheap. I wonder how STMicroelectronics plans on selling these for cheaper. Eventually, I think the long term goals for this technology (if it proves to be really useful) is for use in high-performance logic chips. The problem with clocking large scale chips (such as CPUs) is that the clock signal has to arrive at all the gates at the exact same time. This is actually a very big challenge because resistance*capacitance slows things down. Trying to propagate a signal all the way across a chip to a large number of gates means that you need large driver transistors to supply the large current necessary. With optical clocking, you eliminate the RC time delay. You simply need to generate a pulsed optical signal and then make conduits across the chip to channel it to all the gates.
Of course, I'm guessing that is not as easy as it seems, which is why STMicroelectronics is making simple devices like opto-isolators. It could be several years before optical clocking is perfected.
Actually GaAs chips do emit light while they are running. (I always though it would be cool to have a glass case over the chip, like they do with EPROMs, so you could see it working).
Standard silicon does emit radiation, but it's all in the infrared. IBM actually invented a technique a few years ago that essentially looks at a chip under a microscope with a high-speed IR camera. You can actually see gates turning on because they appear as bright spots in the camera. This technology is useful for diagnosing problems with silicon. (For example, if you're getting too high a current draw, you can see transistors that are on when they're supposed to be off. Did that designer forget to draw a wire to ground?)
The new BMW 7 series and the new Z4 use fiber in the airbag deployment system. This has a real world effect on the safety of the automobile.
Due to the fact that most collisions are over in a matter os miliseconds, electrically controlled airbag systems are kind of like cap-guns. In other words, as soon as they detect that one of their deployment parameters has been breached they must immediately go off. If they don't they will be too late to be effective.
The fiber in the BMW's ISIS system allows the car to gather data from many sensors around the vehicle that help it to get a "picture" of the way the accident is developing. Not only what direction the collison is coming from, but how fast it is propigating through the crumple-zones, etc. The system then calculates the optimal deployment timing for the airbags and sets them off according to the plan it has developed. Without fiber there would not be enough time for the car to design and implement the deployment plan. Now consider, the new 7 series BMW has two front airbags, side airbags for all four outboard seats, head airbags for all four outboard seats, and knee airbags for the front occupants. Furthermore, the front airbags have multiple deployment types depending on the severity of the collision and whether the front occupants have their belts on or not. There are also pre-tensioners on the seatbelts that help make sure the driver and passenger are properly situated in the seat to recieve the front airbag deployment. ALL of this is controlled by the ISIS system.
In addition, the 7 series has an optical entertainment bus that cotrols the stereo components, phone system, navigation system, and the DVD system. It is upgradable and expandable.
Fiber is great for cars, no emf problems, dosen't corrode, more reliable than electrical components (no shorts), but the neatest thing that may be coming for BMW is the possible addition of Blue Tooth technology for the phone system. This would allow ANYONE in the car with a compatible phone system to use the boosted transmitter/antenna system in the car along with voice activated/handsfree operation.
It is completely impossible to say anything intelligent or enlightening in a space this size, excep
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.