IBM Creates Commercially Viable, Electronic-Photonic Integrated Chip

An anonymous reader writes "After more than a decade of research, and a proof of concept in 2010, IBM Research has finally cracked silicon nanophotonics (or CMOS-integrated nanophotonics, CINP, to give its full name). IBM has become the first company to integrate electrical and optical components on the same chip, using a standard 90nm semiconductor process. These integrated, monolithic chips will allow for cheap chip-to-chip and computer-to-computer interconnects that are thousands of times faster than current state-of-the-art copper and optical networks. Where current interconnects are generally measured in gigabits per second, IBM's new chip is already capable of shuttling data around at terabits per second, and should scale to peta- and exabit speeds."

Comments

More info

[Geoffrey.landis]

The article is remarkably lacking in technical details.

This article from two years ago is a little more detailed: http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4211151/IBM-debuts-CMOS-silicon-nanophotonics
or this press release: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/33115.wss

Re:More info

[bluefoxlucid]

RAM is incredibly fast. L1 cache is SRAM and faster; RAM access requires a whole lot of shit with slow clocking. There's a lot of latency because there's a memory controller between everything that works out how to send commands across and get data and put it in the CPU, mostly because just accessing RAM outright by attaching it to CPU pins doesn't work anymore (and partly because the memory controller adds features, but that's become less of an effect). Seriously the CPU can clock a few times by the time access requests actually reaches the RAM.

Original press release [Re:More info]

[Geoffrey.landis]

And here's the IBM press release
http://researcher.ibm.com/researcher/view_project.php?id=2757
which has a sidebar that has "links to additional information" with a lot more details.

Re:OpSIS

[Darth Snowshoe]

One thing that's worth looking into - OpSIS hosts or points to web-based training and seminars several times a year, sometimes given by CAD vendors that support their design and fab processes. They are well worth sitting in for if you're trying to spin up on this stuff. Not a plug, just my own experience.

Re:Optical computing?

[Shatrat]

How much does what IBM has done help us towards being able to produce photonic logic?

None of it. They're just working toward miniaturizing and reducing the cost of these things. https://www.google.com/shopping/product/8819852028889869930?q=LR4%20CFP