Optics steps on copper conductors

    Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced their new achievement, which in the future can have a significant impact on the development of high-performance processors, communications and the computer industry as a whole.

    The problem of high heat dissipation of modern copper conductors in the CPU, as well as the ever-approaching performance threshold, which physically cannot be overcome due to the limitations of metal paths for transmitting bits of information, have long occupied the minds of engineers around the world. One solution is to replace the current paths themselves, and in the future other parts of the processors, with optical devices.

    Photo circuits of the new MIT chip

    Converters of the laser signal into electrical pulses have been used in communications for a long time and successfully, however, their miniaturization rested on the fundamental difficulty of transmitting data through microscopic optical fibers. The light in them has the property of acquiring unpredictable polarization, as a result of which different signals are very difficult to coordinate with each other.

    And the equipment serving large information channels should, due to the same problems, have a very large capacity to compensate for losses along the way.

    Only at MIT so far have they been able to offer a device for the production of which there will be no need for the re-equipment of fine electronics factories. The new technology for the production of optoelectric chips (Optics-On-A-Chip) can be implemented on almost the same equipment on which they are now made by their ordinary counterparts. Today it is the most promising solution that can be put into series in the coming years.

    via AP

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