Rethinking Computer Design For an Optical World

holy_calamity writes "Technology Review looks at how some traditions of computer architecture are up for grabs with the arrival of optical interconnects like Intel's 50Gbps link unveiled last week. The extra speed makes it possible to consider moving a server's RAM a few feet from its CPUs to aid cooling and moving memory and computational power to peripherals like laptop docks and monitors."

Comments

light speed lag leads to higher latency

[Chirs]

Without factoring in speed of light drops due to index of refraction changes, at a distance of 1 meter you're looking at latencies of 7 nanoseconds just for travel time. The bandwidth may be decent but the latency is going to be an issue for any significant distance.