Did you ever think of technology would evolve so much where processors could communicate through light? — Well, researchers at University of California, Berkeley, MIT and the University of Colorado, Boulder have demonstrated the first ever processor that actually uses light for super fast communication and data transmission.
This could be a breakthrough in the development of energy-efficient data centers which will use light rather than electrons. The researchers also claim that the chip is capable of transmitting 50 to 100 times more data than a standard chip.
“Data transport across short electrical wires is limited by both bandwidth and power density, which creates a performance bottleneck for semiconductor microchips in modern computer systems—from mobile phones to large-scale data centers. These limitations can be overcome by using optical communications based on chip-scale electronic–photonic systems enabled by silicon-based nanophotonic devices,” according to the researchers on Nature Journal.
The development of chip working with the help of light was not a walk in the park due to difficulties in merging electrons and photons together. At the moment, there are limited manufacturers capable of developing light-based chips.
This technology will be available in next two years.
Here is a video demonstration:
For those wish to read more on this issue can check EureAlert.
University of Colorado