Beam me up, Scotty!

[Pepto-Bismol]

Let's hope these geeks do the unthinkable: hogtie poor, hapless Cell to the railroad tracks before commandeering a freight train, the Optical Express, to barrel inexorably toward it ...

IBM Technology could make optical chip connections a reality

IBM today announced it has developed a high-speed photodetector that could greatly increase the speed at which information travels to and from microchips, boosting performance in computers and other types of electronic systems.

June 21, 2004, Mumbai: While the performance of microprocessors and other chips has increased dramatically, bottlenecks still exist in getting information to and from the chip. The new photodetectors could relieve those bottlenecks by allowing chips to talk with the other parts of an electronic system using high-speed light pulses and optical connections instead of the relatively slow electrical pulses and wires used today.

While optical connections have long been recognized as a potential avenue for increasing chip communications, prior attempts to incorporate this capability were incompatible with chip manufacturing processes. IBM's photodetectors are based on a newly-developed germanium-on-insulator (GOI) technology that could now, for the first time, allow them to be readily incorporated into many standard chips.

"This is a major step toward overcoming the biggest bottleneck in system performance, the interconnection between chips," said T.C. Chen, VP Science and Technology, IBM Research. "Opto-electronic components such as these GOI photodetectors will be essential for future high-performance computing systems."

Source: Public Relations Domain

 

[AlNom]

ooooooooo


I want my first ray-gun instead

 

[Pepto-Bismol]

What happens with bandwidth is FASTER than main memory?

IBM Claims Optical Interconnect Breakthrough

Online Staff -- Electronic News, 6/22/2004

IBM said today it has developed a high-speed photodetector that could greatly increase chip interconnect speeds.

In a paper slated to be delivered today at the Device Research Conference in Notre Dame, Ind., IBM detailed the technology that involves manufacturing technology compatible with standard silicon techniques. IBM's photodetectors are based on a germanium-on-insulator (GOI) technology.

The germanium can be placed selectively in the regions where the photodetectors reside, making it compatible with standard CMOS technology, according to IBM. This compatibility opens the door for making optoelectronic circuits on the same chips as microprocessors and other electronic components, according to Big Blue.

The GOI photodetectors still obtain the high speeds found in other optoelectronic devices; and they are much faster than silicon-based photodetectors. IBM's device has a frequency response of nearly 30GHz, making it, in principle, suitable for detecting signals at speeds over 50Gbits per second, according to the company. The devices also operate at low voltage, around 1V, and are more than 40 percent efficient, IBM says.

The technology takes advantage of the light absorption properties of germanium at the wavelength typically used for optical transmission over short distances. At this wavelength, 850nm, germanium absorbs light about 70 times more efficiently than silicon. Since germanium absorbs light so well, the detectors are much smaller and faster than silicon photodetectors. But the manufacturing compatibiility with silicon, unlike other optoelectronic materials, could make the devices ideal candidates for chip interconnects, IBM suggests.

"This is a major step toward overcoming the biggest bottleneck in system performance, the interconnection between chips," T.C. Chen, VP Science and Technology for IBM Research, said in a statement. "Optoelectronic components such as these GOI photodetectors will be essential for future high-performance computing systems."

The paper that IBM is presenting Tuesday is titled "High-efficiency, Ge-on-SOI lateral PIN photodiodes with 29 GHz bandwidth," by Steven J. Koester, Jeremy D. Schaub, Gabriel Dehlinger, Jack O. Chu, Q. Christine Ouyang, and Alfred Grill.

Source: Electronic News

 

[Guden Oden]

I think we can just forget this being incorporated in the BB/PS3 though, since Sony has a contract with Rambus to fill the same functions using their buses. Optical interconnects sounds like another one of those perpetually "3-5 years away" technologies we regularly hear announced... Hehehe!

 

[a688]

I think we can just forget this being incorporated in the BB/PS3 though, since Sony has a contract with Rambus to fill the same functions using their buses. Optical interconnects sounds like another one of those perpetually "3-5 years away" technologies we regularly hear announced... Hehehe!

Where the hell is my 3D storage system??

 

[London Geezer]

I want PS3 to be crystal based, a bit like the Fortress of Solitude (or whatever it's called), u know, Superman's palace in the north pole.....

And games will be crystals, shove it in and go!

 

[Guden Oden]

Isn't the fortress of solitude supposed to be made of ICE? If so, that'd make an awfully short shelf-life for those PS3s!

 

[London Geezer]

Isn't the fortress of solitude supposed to be made of ICE? If so, that'd make an awfully short shelf-life for those PS3s!

Really? But the crystal thingys are crystal based storage systems thingys!!

I'm sure i've heard something about using crystals in computers, not sure what for..

 

[Guden Oden]

There are prototype holographic storage systems out there, but last time I heard anything about them they weren't very fast nor very efficient. Thanks to being holographic, they were very secure though. Break a crystal in pieces and you still got all the data intact in each fragment; the image just gets fainter.

Of course, with very high density, the image might be too faint to actually read if the crystal is damaged, but the system as a whole is like a magnitude of magnitudes more secure than disk-based storage...

 

[London Geezer]

There are prototype holographic storage systems out there, but last time I heard anything about them they weren't very fast nor very efficient. Thanks to being holographic, they were very secure though. Break a crystal in pieces and you still got all the data intact in each fragment; the image just gets fainter.

Of course, with very high density, the image might be too faint to actually read if the crystal is damaged, but the system as a whole is like a magnitude of magnitudes more secure than disk-based storage...

*imagines the pure pain of having to recover data from hundreds of different little pieces of a broken crystal*

 

[Guden Oden]

But that's exactly not the point... Ideally, you'd only have to recover ONE fragment to be able to recover all your data...!

 

[London Geezer]

But that's exactly not the point... Ideally, you'd only have to recover ONE fragment to be able to recover all your data...!

Huh? How? Why?

 

[Guden Oden]

Because of the weird, freaky nature of holograms! If you have a holographic photo plate and illuminate it with laser light to create a 3D hologram of the object created and then cut the plate in half, you'll still get a hologram of the ENTIRE object if you take either of the two halves and stick 'em under laser light.

 

[Pepto-Bismol]

Optical interconnects sounds like another one of those perpetually "3-5 years away" technologies we regularly hear announced... Hehehe!

Well it does sound like a pipe dream -- right up to the point where technologists say that it can be implemented within existing fabrication facilities.

Besides, knowing Sony's penchant for procrastination, PlayStation 3 is still three to five years away!

I think we can just forget this being incorporated in the BB/PS3 though, since Sony has a contract with Rambus to fill the same functions using their buses.

Well, according to the press release (below), Sony and Toshiba have not signed a contract per se; they have bought a license. As such, the two are not compelled to even use the technology. But if they do, law will guide them through the Intellectual Property minefield.

More important, the dynamic duo has licensed an interface. Rambus isn't going to ship memory modules any more than they are computer chips. What they have furnished, however, is a mode of communication, a protocol.

So it IS possible to overlay switch fabric architecture with a Rambus interface. :|

February 6, 2004:

Rambus Inc. on announced that Sony Corp. and its Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. subsidiary had signed a licensing agreement for the next-generation very high speed Yellowstone memory interface for potential use in future broadband Sony products. Sony didn't comment on whether the new Rambus memory would be used in its next PlayStation 3 game console.

Toshiba Corp., which makes the current special RDRAM memory for Sony PlayStation 2, also licensed the Yellowstone interface, Rambus said. Takeshi Nakagawa, president of Toshiba Corp. Semiconductor Co., said the Japanese chipmaker will integrate the Yellowstone interface INTO the next-generation DRAM. "These technologies will support us in delivering effective solutions to next-generation systems."

Yellowstone provides a memory DATA rate of 3.2-gigabits/second or 6.4-giabits/second with system DATA rate of 10-gigabytes/second to 100-Gbytes/second. Rambus, based in Los Altos, Calif., also announced a new interface between multiple logic chips, code-named Redwood, claimed to be ten times faster than the current high-speed processor buses. Rambus said details of the precise Redwood bus speed would be released later. Sony and Toshiba licensed the Redwood interface also. Rambus said Sony is expected to use Yellowstone and Redwood in its next products using the "Cell" processor being developed jointly by Sony, Toshiba and IBM Corp.

Source: PS3 Insider

 

[Megadrive1988]

I think we can just forget this being incorporated in the BB/PS3 though, since Sony has a contract with Rambus to fill the same functions using their buses. Optical interconnects sounds like another one of those perpetually "3-5 years away" technologies we regularly hear announced... Hehehe!

well, I for one was not thinking that this could possibly be used in PS3. of course since PS3 is more than halfway complete, probably approaching closer to 75% or more.

I was thinking optical technology might be ready in time for PS4.

 

[Pepto-Bismol]

well, I for one was not thinking that this could possibly be used in PS3. of course since PS3 is more than halfway complete, probably approaching closer to 75% or more.

I was thinking optical technology might be ready in time for PS4.

When Intel or ATi release a super duper thingamajig, they are already working on the successor to its successor -- the super duper super, super thingamajig!!

Just because IBM may be presenting a "new" technology does not mean they have just come up with it! In all likelihood, the opposite is the case ...

Besides, if Cell (or PlayStation 3 for that matter) is to have a shelf life, shouldn't it be a blend of revolutionary ingredients?

 

[cthellis42]

I'm sure their marketing already says that, Pepto.

 

[London Geezer]

I'm sure their marketing already says that, Pepto.

Cough//@ least they haven't NAMED the freaking thing "Revolution"//Cough...






*ducks*

 

[Squeak]

There are prototype holographic storage systems out there, but last time I heard anything about them they weren't very fast nor very efficient. Thanks to being holographic, they were very secure though. Break a crystal in pieces and you still got all the data intact in each fragment; the image just gets fainter.

Of course, with very high density, the image might be too faint to actually read if the crystal is damaged, but the system as a whole is like a magnitude of magnitudes more secure than disk-based storage...

The density, at which you can record, is one of the problems with holographic storage.
Traditional neural networks, which store data in a kind of 3d holographic structure, only have a synapse to "bit" ratio of about 15 percent.
There are various methods to raise that number, but none of them improve dramatically on the capacity.