Intel just announced the prototype to a chip made of all silicon that can encode 200 GB/S on a light beam. This is a step up from the old chip that can only encode 100 GB/S. Also, the 100 GB/S chips were not made of silicon which provides limitations for the chip whereas having been made of silicon doesn’t. On Intel’s silicon chip, it splits an incoming beam of light into eight channels. Within each of the channels there is a modulator. A modulator is a device that encodes data onto light. After the beams are encoded with data, they are then recombined.
In news tests Intel ran on the chip, it clocked in at 25 GB/S. But Mario Paniccia, director of the company’s silicon-photonics lab said they were only testing on one modulator. Although this is only the beginning, he believes in the future they will be able to test all 8 of the modulators at the same time. Could this be what we have been waiting for? Is this something that could make us all now call our computers ’super computers’? I believe with some more work and a decent price, these could be in all computers around the world helping in the PC vs Console war. But we all know who will win with their faster, more powerful devices.
Via: TechnologyReview
