I fail to see the value of this technology for several reasons. The recording medium is not so much the issue in optical media. The bigger issue is the optics, specifically the laser. Why aren't 100GB Blu-ray DVD-ROMS in our computers right now? It's because the blue lasers in them cost > $2K right now. It's not because the technology isn't there to cheaply make the reflecting layers and organic dyes.
So what do these guys do? They decide to reinvent the recording medium, only their medium is inferior because it can't be stamped. And that means their discs can't be mass-produced. To top it all off, they use a laser that costs $100,000, or 50X that of the Blu-ray laser.
These guys have a product that: 1) Has lower storage capacity than Blu-ray 2) Costs 50X more than Blu-ray 3) Uses an inferior recording medium compared to Blu-ray
It might be kinda nifty that they used common materials, but that fact that those materials are inferior is probably why CD's and DVD's aren't made with common materials now! It reminds me of the/. story about the researchers who measured the dielectric constant of chicken feathers and then said it could someday be used to replace the high-tech dielectric layers being used in today's microchips. Dream on guys....
Does anyone know what wavelength these lasers are operating at? The article mentions that the lasers have a hard time piercing through clouds. It seems to me that an infrared laser would be more effective at piercing clouds than a visible one. Infrared solid-state laser technology definitely exists (the laser used in green laser pointers is in fact a 1064nm IR laser diode that is frequency doubled to 532nm).
"The technology turns atomic particles into light with enough radiation to damage an object it encounters."
Umm... anyone know how that is supposed to happen?
But seriously, I'm sick and tired of science related articles being written by journalists with no clue about the science they're writing about. These articles should be checked for accuracy by the people the story is about.
Actually GaAs chips do emit light while they are running. (I always though it would be cool to have a glass case over the chip, like they do with EPROMs, so you could see it working).
Standard silicon does emit radiation, but it's all in the infrared. IBM actually invented a technique a few years ago that essentially looks at a chip under a microscope with a high-speed IR camera. You can actually see gates turning on because they appear as bright spots in the camera. This technology is useful for diagnosing problems with silicon. (For example, if you're getting too high a current draw, you can see transistors that are on when they're supposed to be off. Did that designer forget to draw a wire to ground?)
This sounds like what they're going to be doing at first... The article points out that current opto-isolators need to be made with external components, whereas these would be made as a monolithic device. Still, opto-isolators are fairly cheap. I wonder how STMicroelectronics plans on selling these for cheaper. Eventually, I think the long term goals for this technology (if it proves to be really useful) is for use in high-performance logic chips. The problem with clocking large scale chips (such as CPUs) is that the clock signal has to arrive at all the gates at the exact same time. This is actually a very big challenge because resistance*capacitance slows things down. Trying to propagate a signal all the way across a chip to a large number of gates means that you need large driver transistors to supply the large current necessary. With optical clocking, you eliminate the RC time delay. You simply need to generate a pulsed optical signal and then make conduits across the chip to channel it to all the gates.
Of course, I'm guessing that is not as easy as it seems, which is why STMicroelectronics is making simple devices like opto-isolators. It could be several years before optical clocking is perfected.
One of the things this article really doesn't elaborate on is just how difficult the road has been to make efficient light emitting silicon. I had a professor as an undergraduate at the University of Rochester who spent a significant amount of time trying to get it to work. The article doesn't go into the technology, but I'm guessing they're using porous silicon. Porous-Si has small nanometer scale pores in (etched via electochemistry). The pores effectively alter the band gap of the silicon, increasing it to that of the compound light-emitting semiconductors such as GaAs. While this technique works well at generating light, the problem is getting it to generate light efficiently. Hence the exotic rare-earth materials such as erbium. I'm impressed that STMicroelectronics was able to increase the light output 100-fold. Extravagent claims such as these make me want to take a wait-and-see attitude. The process might be so difficult that it wont be practicle on high-performance chips for some time. Also, the processing techniques of light emitting silicon is different than for standard logic. I'd like to see how well these two processes can be merged.
This is sort of off topic, but the way that Sony is pushing their Memory Stick technology (it's in almost all their products now), you'd think that Sony would be focusing more on getting larger capacity Memory Sticks out the door. Currently they max out at 128MB, while you can get 1GB compactflash cards for pretty cheap. I have a 4MP Sony digicam, and it fills a 128MB stick pretty quickly. I think I remember Sony was planning to release the 256MB Memory Stick at the end of last year, with plans to take it up to 4GB(!). Well, Sony, we're almost at the end of this year, and 256MB sticks are nowhere to be seen. Not to mention a 128MB stick is still way too overpriced, even by Sony's licensee's. You have to wonder if Sony is having problems manufacturing higher density Memory Sticks. However, they are still pushing the technology, so maybe that is a good sign.
When I first read that statement I too thought that it meant our hard drives would be unreadable in 5-10 years.
But on second glance, I think it is just poor journalism. I think what the article intended to say is that if we continue using the current technology (GMR?), and just shrinking the bits to get higher densities, then in 5 years or so the bits will become too small to reliably hold data. That would be the superparamagnetic limit, the point at which magnetic storage can go no further.
Of course I could be completely wrong, but I have a hard time believing that hard drive manufacturers are shipping drives with 5-year shelf lives.
I have reservations about both the Blu-Ray and the proposed HD-DVD being standardized in the near future.
First, as many have stated, using a new compression algorithm with the exisitng stoage of DVDs can be both good and bad. It is definitely good studios, who already have the standard DVD mastering equipment, and for DVD player manufacturers, who have already developed the red-laser hardware. It is good for the consumer in that the new players would probably be pretty cheap. I think cheapness is key for the acceptance of HDTV technology. Currently the sets are very expensive, and with the limited number of HD broadcasts, there is little incentive to buy one. Of course supply and demand is at work here--if more people bought them, the price would go down. Therefore, affordable HD-DVD players would go a long way in making HDTV's more attractive and useful, which would make their price drop and increase their market presence. Hopefully we would then see more HD broadcasts.
The problem with using exisiting DVD storage for HD-DVD is that is probably going to be obsolete sooner... bad for the consumer. Plus, I question how good the new compression algorithms really are. HDTV will tend to make compression artifacts and defects all the more obvious... again bad for the consumer.
Blu-Ray has many benefits in that has a much higher capacity (100GB if I remember correctly), so it will probably have a longer lifetime in the consumer marketplace. And, the picture quality would undoubtedly be of higher quality because the compression ratios would be lower. However, I fear that it is too costly of a technology to be a standard today or the next year. It would be great 5 years down the road, but not now. My reasoning? Blue lasers are really not ready for prime time... They are difficult to manufacture and are still extremely expensive. DVD player manufacturers still probably have much work to do to develop a consumer-grade blue laser disc playing system. Furthermore, the disc manufacturers would have to completely retool. I can see the discs and players being very expensive for a long time. This could further delay HDTV's acceptance in the mass market.
If I had to pick a technology today, it would have to be Hollywood's HD-DVD format, because I think it is important to give consumers incentive to buy HDTV's. Unless the Blu-Ray format can be substantially cheapened in one year (unlikely), I say wait a few more years for Blu-Ray.
This guy's living in a dream world
on
Chicken-Feather Chips
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
This article is very poorly written... lots of technical errors. As a professional in the semiconductor industry, I'm having trouble envisioning how this guy could actually replace silicon with chicken feathers.
For one thing, they seem to talking about the dielectric constant of the materials. For chips, a low dielectric constant material between the metal lines is good, because it reduces the RC time delay. That's why you might have heard all the buzz about low-K dielectrics. But these are state-of-the art nanoporous materials that are designed for good deposition, thickness control, and etchability... I just can't see how you could do the same with chicken feathers.
As for replacing the silicon itself? No way. Silicon is a unique material with semiconducting properties, meaning you can change its resistance by added small controlled amounts of dopant atoms. It can be made in large single crystal ingots with very low defect and impurity level. How in the world could you replace a single crystal with chicken feathers??? Hell, the fibers alone are 100's of times bigger than current gate widths.
This thing would be cool if it somehow let you override the cheesy game music with your own MP3's while you're playing games. However, it doesn't do that so....
What is the point of this unit? It is overpriced at $99 (I bought a Nex II for less than that), and the Gameboy/MP3 Player combination will be big and bulky, and the sound probably won't be as good as a standalone MP3 player (and that's through headphones... sound would be abominable through the puny internal speaker). Finally, the Gameboy Advance's horrible, horrible display would make it difficult to select songs, make playlists, etc. Unless of course you add a bulky light attachment, which just just makes the whole contraption even more unmanageable. Imagine trying to strap one of these to your belt to take a jog!
This device sounds like the answer to nobody's question.
I haven't seen this topic really ever brought up...
Linux and FreeBSD have been available for PPC for a while now, meaning that people could be running Macs as webservers. Although a very tiny percentage of the server population runs Mac webservers, these are mostly running enthusiast's webpages. The bottom line is, most serious webserving applications use Linux or FreeBSD or (gasp) IIS on PC's. (Also multi-CPU Unix servers, etc.)
My question is... why the small portion of webservers running on Apple? Is it because: 1) Apple computers represent a small portion of the computer market 2) Apple users generally run web servers 3) Apple computers suck at running web servers 4) Network admins don't like Apples 5) Some combination of the above
I'd be interesting in hearing some people's comments.
What other alternatives to Graffiti are there? Graffiti works pretty well, but it's pretty slow and laborious for any serious text entry. I checked the website for this Dasher but I think this system would give me a headache after a while! There must be a system faster/more accurate than graffiti that doesn't cause you to go blind. I mainly use my palm for shopping to-do lists. I use my computer to enter more lengthy documents.
Speaking of which, how does everyone like the keyboards for palm? The two models I'm aware of are the itsy-bitsy keyboard about the same width as the Palm, and the larger keyboard that folds into thirds. I'm considering buying one but I don't know which would be better. Anyone know of the pros/cons of each? Thanks!!!
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I fail to see the value of this technology for several reasons. The recording medium is not so much the issue in optical media. The bigger issue is the optics, specifically the laser. Why aren't 100GB Blu-ray DVD-ROMS in our computers right now? It's because the blue lasers in them cost > $2K right now. It's not because the technology isn't there to cheaply make the reflecting layers and organic dyes.
/. story about the researchers who measured the dielectric constant of chicken feathers and then said it could someday be used to replace the high-tech dielectric layers being used in today's microchips. Dream on guys....
So what do these guys do? They decide to reinvent the recording medium, only their medium is inferior because it can't be stamped. And that means their discs can't be mass-produced. To top it all off, they use a laser that costs $100,000, or 50X that of the Blu-ray laser.
These guys have a product that:
1) Has lower storage capacity than Blu-ray
2) Costs 50X more than Blu-ray
3) Uses an inferior recording medium compared to Blu-ray
It might be kinda nifty that they used common materials, but that fact that those materials are inferior is probably why CD's and DVD's aren't made with common materials now! It reminds me of the
Does anyone know what wavelength these lasers are operating at? The article mentions that the lasers have a hard time piercing through clouds. It seems to me that an infrared laser would be more effective at piercing clouds than a visible one. Infrared solid-state laser technology definitely exists (the laser used in green laser pointers is in fact a 1064nm IR laser diode that is frequency doubled to 532nm).
"The technology turns atomic particles into light with enough radiation to damage an object it encounters."
Umm... anyone know how that is supposed to happen?
But seriously, I'm sick and tired of science related articles being written by journalists with no clue about the science they're writing about. These articles should be checked for accuracy by the people the story is about.
Actually GaAs chips do emit light while they are running. (I always though it would be cool to have a glass case over the chip, like they do with EPROMs, so you could see it working).
Standard silicon does emit radiation, but it's all in the infrared. IBM actually invented a technique a few years ago that essentially looks at a chip under a microscope with a high-speed IR camera. You can actually see gates turning on because they appear as bright spots in the camera. This technology is useful for diagnosing problems with silicon. (For example, if you're getting too high a current draw, you can see transistors that are on when they're supposed to be off. Did that designer forget to draw a wire to ground?)
This sounds like what they're going to be doing at first... The article points out that current opto-isolators need to be made with external components, whereas these would be made as a monolithic device. Still, opto-isolators are fairly cheap. I wonder how STMicroelectronics plans on selling these for cheaper. Eventually, I think the long term goals for this technology (if it proves to be really useful) is for use in high-performance logic chips. The problem with clocking large scale chips (such as CPUs) is that the clock signal has to arrive at all the gates at the exact same time. This is actually a very big challenge because resistance*capacitance slows things down. Trying to propagate a signal all the way across a chip to a large number of gates means that you need large driver transistors to supply the large current necessary. With optical clocking, you eliminate the RC time delay. You simply need to generate a pulsed optical signal and then make conduits across the chip to channel it to all the gates.
Of course, I'm guessing that is not as easy as it seems, which is why STMicroelectronics is making simple devices like opto-isolators. It could be several years before optical clocking is perfected.
One of the things this article really doesn't elaborate on is just how difficult the road has been to make efficient light emitting silicon. I had a professor as an undergraduate at the University of Rochester who spent a significant amount of time trying to get it to work. The article doesn't go into the technology, but I'm guessing they're using porous silicon. Porous-Si has small nanometer scale pores in (etched via electochemistry). The pores effectively alter the band gap of the silicon, increasing it to that of the compound light-emitting semiconductors such as GaAs. While this technique works well at generating light, the problem is getting it to generate light efficiently. Hence the exotic rare-earth materials such as erbium. I'm impressed that STMicroelectronics was able to increase the light output 100-fold. Extravagent claims such as these make me want to take a wait-and-see attitude. The process might be so difficult that it wont be practicle on high-performance chips for some time. Also, the processing techniques of light emitting silicon is different than for standard logic. I'd like to see how well these two processes can be merged.
This is sort of off topic, but the way that Sony is pushing their Memory Stick technology (it's in almost all their products now), you'd think that Sony would be focusing more on getting larger capacity Memory Sticks out the door. Currently they max out at 128MB, while you can get 1GB compactflash cards for pretty cheap. I have a 4MP Sony digicam, and it fills a 128MB stick pretty quickly. I think I remember Sony was planning to release the 256MB Memory Stick at the end of last year, with plans to take it up to 4GB(!). Well, Sony, we're almost at the end of this year, and 256MB sticks are nowhere to be seen. Not to mention a 128MB stick is still way too overpriced, even by Sony's licensee's. You have to wonder if Sony is having problems manufacturing higher density Memory Sticks. However, they are still pushing the technology, so maybe that is a good sign.
To hell with Gigabytes and Terabytes! What about gibibytes and tebibytes?
When I first read that statement I too thought that it meant our hard drives would be unreadable in 5-10 years.
But on second glance, I think it is just poor journalism. I think what the article intended to say is that if we continue using the current technology (GMR?), and just shrinking the bits to get higher densities, then in 5 years or so the bits will become too small to reliably hold data. That would be the superparamagnetic limit, the point at which magnetic storage can go no further.
Of course I could be completely wrong, but I have a hard time believing that hard drive manufacturers are shipping drives with 5-year shelf lives.
I have reservations about both the Blu-Ray and the proposed HD-DVD being standardized in the near future.
First, as many have stated, using a new compression algorithm with the exisitng stoage of DVDs can be both good and bad. It is definitely good studios, who already have the standard DVD mastering equipment, and for DVD player manufacturers, who have already developed the red-laser hardware. It is good for the consumer in that the new players would probably be pretty cheap. I think cheapness is key for the acceptance of HDTV technology. Currently the sets are very expensive, and with the limited number of HD broadcasts, there is little incentive to buy one. Of course supply and demand is at work here--if more people bought them, the price would go down. Therefore, affordable HD-DVD players would go a long way in making HDTV's more attractive and useful, which would make their price drop and increase their market presence. Hopefully we would then see more HD broadcasts.
The problem with using exisiting DVD storage for HD-DVD is that is probably going to be obsolete sooner... bad for the consumer. Plus, I question how good the new compression algorithms really are. HDTV will tend to make compression artifacts and defects all the more obvious... again bad for the consumer.
Blu-Ray has many benefits in that has a much higher capacity (100GB if I remember correctly), so it will probably have a longer lifetime in the consumer marketplace. And, the picture quality would undoubtedly be of higher quality because the compression ratios would be lower. However, I fear that it is too costly of a technology to be a standard today or the next year. It would be great 5 years down the road, but not now. My reasoning? Blue lasers are really not ready for prime time... They are difficult to manufacture and are still extremely expensive. DVD player manufacturers still probably have much work to do to develop a consumer-grade blue laser disc playing system. Furthermore, the disc manufacturers would have to completely retool. I can see the discs and players being very expensive for a long time. This could further delay HDTV's acceptance in the mass market.
If I had to pick a technology today, it would have to be Hollywood's HD-DVD format, because I think it is important to give consumers incentive to buy HDTV's. Unless the Blu-Ray format can be substantially cheapened in one year (unlikely), I say wait a few more years for Blu-Ray.
This article is very poorly written... lots of technical errors. As a professional in the semiconductor industry, I'm having trouble envisioning how this guy could actually replace silicon with chicken feathers.
For one thing, they seem to talking about the dielectric constant of the materials. For chips, a low dielectric constant material between the metal lines is good, because it reduces the RC time delay. That's why you might have heard all the buzz about low-K dielectrics. But these are state-of-the art nanoporous materials that are designed for good deposition, thickness control, and etchability... I just can't see how you could do the same with chicken feathers.
As for replacing the silicon itself? No way. Silicon is a unique material with semiconducting properties, meaning you can change its resistance by added small controlled amounts of dopant atoms. It can be made in large single crystal ingots with very low defect and impurity level. How in the world could you replace a single crystal with chicken feathers??? Hell, the fibers alone are 100's of times bigger than current gate widths.
Me remains a bit skeptical.
This thing would be cool if it somehow let you override the cheesy game music with your own MP3's while you're playing games. However, it doesn't do that so....
What is the point of this unit? It is overpriced at $99 (I bought a Nex II for less than that), and the Gameboy/MP3 Player combination will be big and bulky, and the sound probably won't be as good as a standalone MP3 player (and that's through headphones... sound would be abominable through the puny internal speaker). Finally, the Gameboy Advance's horrible, horrible display would make it difficult to select songs, make playlists, etc. Unless of course you add a bulky light attachment, which just just makes the whole contraption even more unmanageable. Imagine trying to strap one of these to your belt to take a jog!
This device sounds like the answer to nobody's question.
Sorry... I meant:
:)
2) Apple users generally DON'T run web servers
I didn't want to unintentionally insult anyone out there!
I haven't seen this topic really ever brought up...
Linux and FreeBSD have been available for PPC for a while now, meaning that people could be running Macs as webservers. Although a very tiny percentage of the server population runs Mac webservers, these are mostly running enthusiast's webpages. The bottom line is, most serious webserving applications use Linux or FreeBSD or (gasp) IIS on PC's. (Also multi-CPU Unix servers, etc.)
My question is... why the small portion of webservers running on Apple? Is it because:
1) Apple computers represent a small portion of the computer market
2) Apple users generally run web servers
3) Apple computers suck at running web servers
4) Network admins don't like Apples
5) Some combination of the above
I'd be interesting in hearing some people's comments.
Cheers!
What other alternatives to Graffiti are there? Graffiti works pretty well, but it's pretty slow and laborious for any serious text entry. I checked the website for this Dasher but I think this system would give me a headache after a while! There must be a system faster/more accurate than graffiti that doesn't cause you to go blind. I mainly use my palm for shopping to-do lists. I use my computer to enter more lengthy documents.
Speaking of which, how does everyone like the keyboards for palm? The two models I'm aware of are the itsy-bitsy keyboard about the same width as the Palm, and the larger keyboard that folds into thirds. I'm considering buying one but I don't know which would be better. Anyone know of the pros/cons of each? Thanks!!!