posted by
Dopefish
on Thursday February 27 2014, @09:00AM
from the super-fast-downloads-of-animated-gifs dept.
from the super-fast-downloads-of-animated-gifs dept.
visaris writes "Phys.org reports researchers at IBM have set a new record for data transmission over a multi-mode optical fiber. The record data rate of 64Gb/s was achieved over a cable 57 meters long, using non-return-to-zero (NRZ) modulation with a type of laser called a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). Researcher Dan Kuchta notes, "Others have thought that this modulation wouldn't allow for transfer rates much faster than 32 Gb/s." Indeed, many researchers thought that achieving higher transmission rates would require turning to more complex types of modulation, such as pulse-amplitude modulation-4 (PAM-4). The achievement demonstrates that standard, existing technology for sending data over short distances should be able to meet the growing needs of servers, data centers and supercomputers through the end of this decade, according to the researchers. "What we're showing is that [...] this technology has at least one or two more generations of product life in it," says Kuchta."
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IBM Sets New Optical Transmission Record
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(Score: 4, Funny) by clone141166 on Thursday February 27 2014, @10:34AM
That's great news, if I had this technology I could make sure I got first post on SoylentNews articles even faster!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2014, @03:19PM
Or you could back up your porn collection in under five minutes.
(Score: 1) by mrcoolbp on Thursday February 27 2014, @05:15PM
Hmm, 32 Gb/s, clearly you don't know me very well.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by forkazoo on Thursday February 27 2014, @05:25PM
Of course, having to be within 60 meters of the server probably gives you some advantage regardless of the specific interconnect...
(Score: 2, Funny) by NecroDM on Thursday February 27 2014, @10:56AM
And also the growing internet needs for more pr0n! We all know what the internet is for
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Thursday February 27 2014, @01:49PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Informative) by NecroDM on Thursday February 27 2014, @02:44PM
(Score: 1) by davester666 on Thursday February 27 2014, @06:53PM
Well, it just happens to be long enough to connect to the NSA room...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Angry Jesus on Thursday February 27 2014, @07:03PM
however since it's optic fiber latency shouldn't be an issue afaik.
Over short distances, like interconnects, latency is mostly a function of the transceiver and receiver electronics than it is of the fibre (or copper). That includes protocol overhead (error correction, packetization, clocking, etc) too.
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Friday February 28 2014, @09:23AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2014, @12:34PM
...with our 300 baud modems?
Such a waste.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by chebucto on Thursday February 27 2014, @01:52PM
I was surprised to see IBM's name in a fiber-speed-record article, but it makes sense given their business in supercomputing.
One stupid question: how are speeds this fast used? 32GB/s is faster that a lot of RAM, so I doubt it's for sending files to disk. Is this for CPUs to communicate directly with each other & each other's RAM?
(Score: 5, Informative) by visaris on Thursday February 27 2014, @01:56PM
This is common in HPC. All the new interconnects support one-sided communication. So, one node can RDMA into another node's memory without involving either of the nodes' CPUs much.
(Score: 2, Informative) by bob_super on Thursday February 27 2014, @10:34PM
If it's too fast for your RAM... you put more RAM in parallel.
More seriously, 400G Ethernet (on single-mode fiber) is becoming a reality, 100G is becoming widely deployed (for big backbones).
ASICs have been able to run that kind of speeds for a while, FPGAs for the last couple years. 32G is peanuts in the datacom R&D world (don't expect to afford it any time soon)
(Score: 1) by cafebabe on Monday March 03 2014, @03:56PM
Yep. Checking a neighbor's RAM is quicker than checking your own harddisk.
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