Sun Working to Obsolete Motherboards

perl_camel_jockey writes "Sun is developing a new technology that promises to increase computing power by eliminating the need for physical, soldered chip-to-chip connections on the motherboard. Called 'proximity communications', it portends the ability for chips to talk to one another wirelessly just by being next to each other. Potential applications in computer design abound. Apparently this is part of Sun's Hero program, recipient of a $50 million grant from DARPA's High Productivity Computing Systems program to rejuvenate supercomputing in the US and regain the lead lost to Japan, in particular to NEC's Earth Simulator, ranked as the most powerful supercomputer in the world."

Comments

Am I missing something?

[physicsphairy]

"it portends the ability for chips to talk to one another wirelessly just by being next to each other."

Well, unless each chip comes equipped with its own miniaturized nuclear reactor, aren't they still all going to have to have leads running to the powersupply?

I don't mean to be a heckler, but are you really "doing away" with the motherboard or just reducing it to a voltage bus with transmitters and receivers replacing some of the input and output pins?

Worried...

[rpbailey1642]

I might just be horribly ignorant, so please inform me...security? Even though all it is transferring is system calls and such, I am certain that there are ways to back-engineer what the computer is doing at that time by reading the (very faint, I'm sure) wireless signals. Again, I do not know, so will someone please enlighten me? What exactly is going on, what are the security ramifications?

Re:DUPE

[johnhennessy]

How about allowing subscribers to moderate stories before they hit the main site.

People who are really busy could browse at +5 "Don't do anything else until you read this !!!" while people with loads of time (or in college) could browse at normal levels.

Oh, and as a plus, you would eliminate dupes as well.