Researchers Develop Photonic Processors

TheCybernator writes to mention a New Scientist story about scientists who are developing a light-based processor by actually storing and delaying photons. These 'optical buffers' may one day be used to make super-fast microchips based on light instead of electrons. From the article: "A decade from now ... there [may] be not seven cores but hundreds on a chip ... Connecting these cores using light could solve this problem. Until now, the lack of optical buffers has been a key roadblock to these kinds of light connections. The way information is transmitted means that buffers must hold packets of data while a router decides where they are to be sent. Buffers are also needed to delay optical pulses - so they do not collide at switching points - and to synchronise streams of data coming from different places."

Comments

Re:100 Cores?

[be-fan]

I can't speak for Windows or OS X, but Linux's SMP implementation locks a process to the CPU it first runs on unless it absolutely has to move it to distribute load evenly.