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Paint-on Laser Brings Optical Computing Closer

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the paint-by-number dept.

holy_calamity writes "New Scientist has a story about a laser made by painting a solution of semiconductor crystals onto glass. It could be used to break the interconnect barrier by having optical interconnects, the interconnect barrier threatens Moore's law unless a faster way of connecting chips is found."

2 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Was paint by numbers by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 3, Interesting
    now numbers by paint.

    Optical interconnects could make for far more reliable connections between system components. Ribbon cables etc break easily, and are a real nightmare for assembly. OTOH, a few specks of dust in an optical connection could cause a lot of grief (reflection etc) making one wonder what the longterm prospects of shipping optically connected products are.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  2. It starts to at high frequencies by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For example, suppose you wanted something to operate at 10GHz. Now suppose that the medium you use is such that the wave moves at .5c. That gives you a wavelength of just 1.5cm. That means on larger dies, you can start having signal propagation problems, in that you won't get a wave all the way across the chip before the next ones starts. Plays hell on synchronized processor designs like we use today.

    It's not a problem yet, that I know of, but something that we have to think about in the future.