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Intel Demos Optical Data Transfer For Servers
angry tapir writes "Intel is taking the first steps to implement thin fiber optics that will use lasers and light as a faster way to move data inside computers, replacing the older and slower electrical wiring technology found in most computers today. Intel's silicon photonics technology will be implemented at the motherboard and rack levels and use light to move data between storage, networking and computing resources. The new rack architecture with silicon photonics is a result of more than a decade of research in Intel's laboratories, Intel CTO Justin Rattner said. It could enable communication at speeds of 100Gbps and transfer data at high speeds while using less power than copper cables. The technology could also consolidate power supplies and fans in a data center, reducing component costs."
Is this "good-bye OEM motherboards"?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Don't electrical pulses along a copper wire go at the speed of light already?
I can see various advantages of course, but my meager knowledge of the subject suggests one of the main barriers is the encoding schemes for pushing bits about, and not the physical substance that the signals travel on per se.
Lasers and LEDs age. Does anyone knows whats would be the life of these "optical chips"?
The speed of the medium could be similar or faster to copper one, while there are no heat nor interference, but, what about the convertion between electrical and optical information? That could slow down things, induce heat, limit bandwidth or require more power? And there is that little factor called cost.
relevant wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photonic_computing
A claimed advantage of optics is that it can reduce power consumption, but an optical communication system will typically use more power over short distances than an electronic one. This is because the shot noise of an optical communication channel is greater than the thermal noise of an electrical channel which, from information theory, means that more signal power is required to achieve the same data capacity. However, over longer distances and at greater data rates, the loss in electrical lines is sufficiently large that optical communications will comparatively use a lower amount of power. As communication data rates rise, this distance becomes longer and so the prospect of using optics in computing systems becomes more practical.
and a more interesting article from 2010.
http://phys.org/news199470370.html
Today computer components are connected to each other using copper cables or traces on circuit boards. Due to the signal degradation that comes with using metals such as copper to transmit data, these cables have a limited maximum length. This limits the design of computers, forcing processors, memory and other components to be placed just inches from each other. Today's research achievement is another step toward replacing these connections with extremely thin and light optical fibers that can transfer much more data over far longer distances, radically changing the way computers of the future are designed and altering the way the datacenter of tomorrow is architected.
Can somebody cut through the marketing stuff and explain the difference between this and Fibre Channel please?
I'm sure that Intel called this "Light Peak" initially, when they demonstrated it two years ago.
Seems to me that this technology could achieve transfer speeds a lot greater than 100 Gbps.
Ever since fiber optics was invented we've been hearing about how optical computing and optical data transfer is going to revolutionize computing. It's not that I don't believe that it won't happen some day, but you've got to invent a mirrorless, efficient optical switch first. Otherwise you're never escaping the "slow" copper wire at some point.
hasn't IBM been doing this for more than a decade?
If there arn't LEDs spread throughout the interconnect that flash randomly during operation, then how am I supposed to accept that this is the future in server technology?
in waveguides the speed is slower, and that includes twisted pair and coax. Typical twisted pair impulse propagation is 45 - 65 % speed of light. Bare copper conductor over ground plane (what you quoted) is not relevant here.
Fiber optics were among the first technologies exchanged for human biological material.
From my understanding, light travels 2/3rd the speed it does in a straight copper wire. It's pretty simple to expand bandwidth via providing more parallel links of communication, much cheaper than via separate laser/detector modules. So what's the point if it's slower than direct wires?
100Gbps is inadequate today for a core system interconnect.
You can buy 100Gbps NETWORK interfaces (although, obviously not for your desktop PC, because, as per above THE BUS IS TOO SLOW)
I'll say it again, releasing technology to deliver 100Gbps interconnects at the system core is holding back innovation TODAY, not "in the future" - TODAY FOLKS!
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
A very similar tech from IBM was covered by Slashdot last month slashdot.org/story/12/12/10/1433220/ that was promising to "scale to peta- and exabit speeds".