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Sun Working to Obsolete Motherboards

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the look-ma-no-solder dept.

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."

6 of 228 comments (clear)

  1. In other news.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Slashdot Microsystems is working hard on a system to eliminate duplicate postings. They hope to have the system working by early 2008.

  2. Pride by Hypharse · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Nothing like damaged pride to get the government to push along technology. Without Japan's competition this would probably not have happened. All we need is for Russia to cure a type of cancer using stem cells and congress would pass a law funding it the next day.

    About obsolete motherboards I have my doubts though. The Von Neumann (may be spelled wrong) model has been around for a long time because it has proven to work and it also supplies a lot of companies with revenue. If you only have a single chip, then a lot of companies are going to lose money and they won't like that. In fact there may be a silver lining in this that it will push motherboard manufacturers even further for fear of being wiped out by this type of technology.

  3. Am I missing something? by physicsphairy · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "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?

    --
    When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
  4. I see it now... ;-) by Henk+Poley · · Score: 5, Funny

    Honey, I'll warm you something in the microwave!

    Noooo...

    [Beep] rebooting... grmbl...

  5. Re:uhm... i can see it now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dupe story...$1

    Overused Mastercard joke....$10

    Knowing that WegianWarrior still lives with his mom...priceless

  6. Re:Worried... by ryouki · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I dont think there is much to be worried about. The system the article discribes seems to be using capasitors spaning 2 chips to interconnect components on the system. One plate on each chip. The gap between the chips woudld work like a dieletric on a normal cap.

    I don't think they are trying to make a small computer with bluetooth or wifi glueing components together. Cables have more bandwidth than wireless.

    The security riskes for these "wireless" connections would be no more than that of a normal capacitor of the same size.